Had an interesting conversation about this picture. Is it wheat? Or straw? or something else?  Then the conversation switched to childhood memories and what triggers these emotions! Very interesting progression.

Below this picture is the Facebook Conversation that progressed thru the day regarding Wheat or Straw?

Is it Wheat or Straw?

Terry: Are those actually wheat bales? I read that people do sometimes bale wheat for feed now, if wheat prices are down, but I still automatically think it’s hay when I see bales. I thought those were bromegrass or something.

• Kathy

  good question!  They are probably hay.. I was just driving by, saw them, and “baled” out to take a picture — (damn I’m so funny).. Stop the car, stop the car.. that was me!!
• Terry

  Yuck yuck. Our home is a bad joke friendly zone.
  Odds are, it’s hay. Not clover or alfalfa. The stubble’s wrong for that. Some kind of grass. You can’t be wrong if you say Bales Under A Blue Sky.
• Kathy

  Terry – I can clearly imagine your home being a bad joke friendly place.. tee hee.. Carol  might remember where we were when I made her pull over so I could take this picture.  I think we were still in Alberta somewhere..?
• Cathy

  Prairie boy John says it’s either hay (light green) or straw (golden)(hay=grass; straw=what’s left when they’ve harvested the grain crop) lol, too much info here? 🙂
  absolutely love this pic Kathy!
• Terry

  After ruling out wheat feed, I thought it could be wheat or barley straw, but the bit left standing in the foreground looks like grass to me so my guess is hay. At the farm, we always had clover or alfalfa and a field of bromegrass for feed. Of course, that was back in the stack-the-little-square-bales-by-hand days. The big round ones seem like cheating.
• Carol

  It was somewhere between Grande Prairie and FSJ
• Stan

  Nope, this is not a hay field.  That field is stubble from some sort of grain and those are straw bales.  The grain was likely harvested without the chopper going on the combine and then the straw (sans grain) was baled.  The straw is good for bedding but very little else – no nutrient value at all  It looks to me like it could be oats in the foreground.  The bales and stubble are far too golden for this to be hay.  Barley straw has more of a golden color than wheat so that is a possibility.  The trees in the background are still green and barley being harvested much earlier (mid August) than wheat (early Sept) supports the barley possibility.  I miss the farm this time of year…sigh!  You can take the boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy!
• Kathy

  This picture was taken Sep19-2011 – does that help? I certainly can’t help out with the discussion as I didn’t grow up on a farm – We just got to visit the farm cousins and chase pigs and fall off horses!… LOL
• Stan

  I grew up (some have suggested that I never did grow up) on a grain farm.  The color would suggest to me barley – maybe oats.  However. I would put money on that not being a hay field.  What is most important however, is that the picture is very beautiful and brings back many, many fond memories of my childhood.  🙂
• Kathy

  Stan you’re right about memories – Music and photo’s are a great trigger that take us right back to another time in an instant.
• Stan

  Yes, I agree.  One of the strongest memory triggers for me is the sense of smell.  Certain odors will bring a flash of a picture in my mind back to the point in time where that sensation was first experienced.  The human brain is claimed to be the most complex structure in the universe and it is difficult to argue with that!
• Melody

  I agree with straw bales. If it was hay bales the green hay that was below the  cut would still be in the field. 🙂 I was very lucky to be raised in country settings.