Distant view of a combine harvester cutting in a sun drenched wheat field, Cotswolds, UK.
Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-intensive activity of the growing season. On large mechanized farms, harvesting utilizes the most expensive and sophisticated farm machinery, such as the combine harvester. The term "harvesting" in general usage may include immediate postharvest handling, including cleaning, sorting, packing, and cooling. The completion of harvesting marks the end of the growing season, or the growing cycle for a particular crop, and the social importance of this event makes it the focus of seasonal celebrations such as harvest festivals, found in many religions. The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests grain crops. The name derives from its combining three separate operations comprising harvesting; reaping, threshing, and winnowing into a single process. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn (maize), sorghum, soybeans, flax (linseed), sunflowers, and canola. The waste straw left behind on the field is the remaining dried stems and leaves of the crop with limited nutrients which is either chopped and spread on the field or baled for feed and bedding for livestock. Combine harvesters are one of the most economically important labour saving inventions, significantly reducing the fraction of the population that must be engaged in agriculture
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Photo credit: © Scenics & Science / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: agriculture, bale, cereal, combine, cotswolds, cutting, distant, drenched, field, grain, harvest, harvester, reap, ripe, straw, sun, uk., view, wheat, winnowing
