What is Harvesting?

Fall is harvest season for many of our favorite foods! What is harvesting? Harvesting is the process of gathering ripe crops, or animals and fish, to eat. While not all crops are ready for harvest in the fall, apples, winter squashes like pumpkins and acorn squash, and potatoes are! Want to see harvest in action? Watch this Idaho potato harvest! 

Farming practices have evolved over the years with the introduction of technology, so let’s learn a little bit more about one important machine: a combine harvester. A combine is used to harvest things like corn, soybeans and wheat. This machine does three things at once: cutting and gathering the crop; separating the edible parts of a crop, the grain, from the inedible, stalks; and moving the unwanted stalks and husks away from the grains.

Learn more about how a combine works from our friends at Illinois Farm Bureau here. 

Other crops, like apples, are picked by hand! You may have visited a local orchard to go apple picking, but the apples in your grocery store have to be picked by hand too. Curious how apples grow? Watch this video! 

Put your knowledge to work and play My American Farm’s Harvest This! game. 

In this accompanying lesson, match pictures of harvesting equipment with their definition. 

Want more? The distribution relay lesson tests students’ knowledge of the distribution process for general agricultural commodities.