I am happy to report the 2015 alfalfa seed harvest is complete! We actually finished the end of September, but have been busy with beet harvest.  Overall, the harvest went pretty smoothly.  The weather the last couple of years slowed down our harvest, but this year we had perfect weather!  We were lucky and finished the day before the rain came in.

Alfalfa seed harvest is one of our easier harvests, yet one of our most difficult at the same time. It is easy because we do not need a big crew to get it done like some of our other crops.  With both barley harvest and sugar beet harvest, we need at least two equipment operators and several truck drivers. With alfalfa seed harvest, we only need a combine operator and a truck driver, which can almost be the same person since it takes so long to fill a truck.

This year, my husband and I both ran a combine, and then he would take the truck in 1st thing in the morning before it was dry enough to start combining. This worked well since it would take about a day to fill a truck.

Alfalfa seed harvest is one of our more difficult harvests because it takes so much more preparation and adjustments to get started. As can be seen in this picture of alfalfa seed, it is very small! This makes it harder to get it out of the curls, and then takes some extra steps to get it separated from the trash. We also have to be careful not to blow the seed out the back of the combine.

Unlike barley harvest where you can pretty much adjust the settings from the cab of the combine and go, special parts have to be swapped out or installed before we can start harvesting alfalfa seed. The last couple of years we ran a John Deere combine and had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done to it. This year, we decided to switch to a Case combine. Since the Case combine is different than the John Deere, we had to figure out as we went along what needed to be done to it to best prepare it for alfalfa seed.

We also have to put crop lifters on the header to make sure we pick up all the alfalfa seed. An air reel is also very helpful when combining alfalfa seed. We have one on our John Deere header, but just rented the Case header this year so that is why it did not have one. We will be buying one this winter and will either buy a header with an air reel on it already, or buy it separate and install it ourselves. Here is a picture of the header we used on the Case combine this year. You can see the lifters on the front.

The curls have to be very dry while harvesting. If there is any dew in the morning, we have to wait for it warm up and dry before we can get started. The curls are too tough if they have any moisture, making it hard to get the seed out of them. Here is a close-up of some alfalfa seed curls with the seed still in them:

Here is a view from the driver's seat while combining alfalfa seed.

I also put together a short video of alfalfa seed harvest.

It is my first video so it isn't perfect. I promise they will get better. 🙂

Finally, here is a picture from above of the alfalfa seed field when we were almost finished.

We are now in the middle of beet harvest, and I am putting together some awesome video clips of that! Stay tuned to check them out! 🙂