Blog

With the summer months coming to an end, the Threemile team is gearing up for our largest harvests of the year.

Threemile crops are not all harvested during one period – blueberries and triticale, for instance, are harvested earlier in the summer – but the largest of harvests, including potatoes and chopped silage corn, begin in late August and often last into October.  

Preparation for harvest really takes place all throughout the growing season. Threemile Zone Managers, Agronomists, Directors, and other farming team members conduct routine field checks to assess how crops are progressing and ensuring they are getting all the resources they need. These checks have been especially important during this summer’s higher-than-normal temperatures.

As potatoes and corn become harvest-ready in late summer, Threemile’s team of mechanics is busy servicing all harvest equipment, using the time to make any necessary adjustments to ensure machinery is ready to roll when it is needed.

Just as they have during the growing season, team members will keep an eye on the temperature as harvest begins. One reason for this is that potatoes are more likely to bruise when harvested during higher temperatures. To address this, daily harvest may start earlier in the morning while temperatures are lower.

Once conditions are right, potatoes will be harvested with a digger pulled behind a tractor, offloaded into a haul truck, and then taken to the trans-loading site. There, vines, rocks, sticks and other organic materials are sorted out so nothing but clean potatoes go in storage.  

When corn is ready to harvest, it is chopped and loaded into trucks. Both organic and conventional corn is then packed, tarped and used as silage for the dairy cows throughout the rest of the year.  

Harvest can be one of the busiest times on the farm, but it is also one of the most rewarding, where a year’s worth of work pays off and team members finally see the fruits of their effort and dedication.