By Charl van Rooyen
Due to the soaked soil, the brothers could not access the soybean lands with a combine harvester and had to hand harvest with small brush cutters before moving the beans to a dry location for threshing. This again demonstrates that a farmer can devise a plan when the need is pressing.
The summer of 2024-25 was exceptional for brothers Carel and Johan Opperman from Middelburg in Mpumalanga. The start of summer was the driest in ninety years, but then the floodgates of the heavens opened, and they experienced the wettest summer in ninety years.
As a result, the soil was soon waterlogged, and like many farmers, they struggled to get into their lands with harvesters to gather maize, soybeans, and sunflowers.
This challenge also affected the brothers’ crops on their farms, Welverdiend and Koornfontein.
Maize can be left in wet soil until there is enough sunshine to dry it out enough for harvesters to operate, but it is different with soybeans. The pods eventually pop open, and the precious kernels fall to the ground, becoming food for wild birds.
Waterlogged
In a crop rotation system, they cultivate approximately 880 hectares of land, consisting of 420 hectares of soybeans and 460 hectares of maize. When African Farming visited the farm, 160 hectares of soybeans had already been harvested using their Case 7130 harvester, but the remaining 280 hectares of land were still too wet. They needed to make a different plan for 30 to 40 hectares.
In one section of their lands, an incessant stream of water has been flowing since January into a small pond made by Carel. From this little dam, he pumps 15 000 litres of clean water to his cattle and sheep daily.
Given the incredibly wet conditions, the Opperman brothers had to make a plan for their soybeans.
Carel dusted off an idea from another farmer from Middelburg, Jannie Schoeman, that he had first learned of when he worked for him. It was also a particularly wet year around 2006 or 2007 when Schoeman devised a plan to attach blades to a weed eater with a circular blade to cut off his soybean plants.
Carel purchased a Red Rhino, a Shindauwa bush cutter, and a Turfmaster self-propelled blade cutter. All three implements can be handled by a single worker. The Turfmaster is controlled like a regular lawnmower, while the bush cutters hang from a shoulder strap and are swung back and forth to cut down the plants.
Moving the harvest
The brothers hired eight temporary workers to stack the cut plants into piles and then use pitchforks to stack them in windrows.
The soybean plants in the wettest areas are loaded onto a tarpaulin attached to the back of a tractor. It is then towed to the edge of the land where the combine stands on dry land to thresh the soybeans. The 4×4 tractor’s wide tyres prevent it from getting stuck in the muddy ground.
They cut down 2 to 3 hectares of soybean plants each day. “Some kernels fall out, but there are losses anyway when the threshing machine harvests, so our damage is no greater than in normal conditions,” says Carel.
They planned to employ more workers when the lands are drier. This way, they also contribute to employment.
Rewarding the farmer’s plan
This innovative hand method costs the farmers about R2 100 per hectare, including wages, wear and tear, and fuel. With the Case harvester, it would have worked out to R1 500 per hectare, but the extra R600 was worth it because otherwise they would have lost their harvest in the wettest lands.
Their yield averages 2.7 t/ha, meaning 81-108 tons of kernels can be sold from those lands. The soybean price on that day was R7 600 per ton; thus, an income of R615 600 to R830 800 would have been lost if it had not been for their ingenious plan. Production costs have not yet been factored in.
Enquiries: Carel Schoeman, 082 388 0894, admin@cjboerderycc.co.za
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