FOLLOW US 
Cutting Kansas Wheat
 Until
the mid-1800's, wheat was cut by hand with scythes or sickles, sharp
knife-like tools. Then, in 1831, Cyrus McCormick revolutionized wheat
harvest with the invention of the first mechanical reaper. The
mechanical reaper used a knife with a saw-toothed edge to cut the wheat
plants just like a saw could cut wood. It was pulled by horses. |
 The wheat heads were still attached to the wheat stalks. The wheat
would be bundled into wheat shocks or piled into stacks until a
threshing machine was available. The threshing machine and its crew
would travel from farm to farm to thresh the wheat (separate and remove
the wheat kernels from the rest of the plants). The first
self-propelled threshing machines had steam or gas engines and it took
25-30 men to thresh the wheat. |
 Today,
a machine cuts the heads off the wheat plants, beats the wheat kernels
out of the heads, cleans the grain, and stores the grain in a grain
tank. The machine that does all this while moving through a field of
wheat is called a combine. The combine got its name because it combined
the two basic jobs of cutting and threshing wheat. Early combines were
pulled by as many as 32 horses or mules. Later, tractors replaced the
horses and mules. Then, combines became self-propelled machines as they
are today |
 By
hand, farmers could cut only 2 acres of wheat a day. With Cyrus
McCormick's invention of the reaper, farmers could cut 8 acres a day.
Today's modern combines can harvest 1,000 bushels of wheat an hour,
cutting an acre of wheat in 6 minutes or less. In other words, today's
combines can cut enough wheat to make 73,000 loaves of white bread
every hour! |
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Take a ride inside the cab of John Detmer's combine as he cuts wheat on one of his fields in Great Bend, Kansas.
