How Steep Is It!
This post is a continuation of my post from yesterday. The farm that I grew up on had hills with a fairly aggressive slope to them. The old 1960 era Hillside combines could level the combine on up to a 44 degree slope. There were two primary reasons to level the combine. First, it prevented the combine from getting too top heavy and tipping over and secondly, it made a level bed for the straw walkers to distribute the grain. Without the leveling, the grain would bunch up on the downhill side and your harvest loss would be much greater. In some cases, we had certain parts of our hills that exceeded 45 degrees. On these types of hills, what you could harvest in one day on flat land would take at least two or more days to get done.
On the picture that I am including with this post, the slope of the hill in the background nearest the forested area was in excess of 45 degrees. The slope coming down the gully was probably in excess of 20 degrees. One year we had a hired man driving truck for us and for some reason he got the bright idea to take the truck to the top of the hill to get it filled. My father knew this was not a good idea, but he filled the truck anyway. The hired man then started to drive the truck down the hill and lost control near the bottom right hand corner. At that point he jumped out of the truck and broke his leg. He was lucky since if he stayed in the truck cab, about a second later it crashed into the hillside on the bottom left side of the photo and the grain bin broke loose and basically sheered off the cab. If he stayed in, he would have not survived.
There photos really do not show how steep this ground is, but although steep, this ground in this area can raise 135 bushel dry land wheat, so it is worth harvesting. With the newer equipment, it has become easier and faster to harvest, although the new Hillside kits only level out to about 28 degrees so you are a little more careful how you harvest these hills.
Paul Neiffer, CPA
Harvesting Peas on the “Steep Hill”
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
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