As combines roll through wheat fields across North Central Montana, another operation is working just as hard to keep harvest moving.
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At Mountain View Co-op's grain elevator outside Dutton, hundreds of trucks loaded with winter wheat arrive each day, creating a carefully coordinated system that allows producers to spend less time waiting and more time harvesting.
"It's about speed," said Mountain View Co-op Grain Division Manager Jake McFarlin. "We're trying to make sure we get guys in and out back to the field as fast as possible."
The grain elevator serves producers across a large portion of North Central Montana, stretching from Conrad in the north to Great Falls in the south. During the busiest part of harvest, McFarlin said the facility receives between 300 and 400 truckloads of grain every day.
Despite the heavy traffic, trucks typically spend only a few minutes at the elevator before heading back to the fields.
"Typically the trucks are in and out in just a few minutes," McFarlin said. "They dump here, head back to the field, get reloaded, and come back."
That quick turnaround is critical during Montana's short harvest window, when weather can quickly change field conditions.
To keep pace, Mountain View Co-op's unloading system is capable of dumping approximately 50,000 bushels of grain every hour — the equivalent of unloading about 50 semi-trucks in the same amount of time.
Once unloaded, the winter wheat is moved into massive ground storage bunkers that measure roughly 150 feet wide and 1,100 feet long. This year, crews are filling four-million-bushel bunkers with winter wheat harvested across the region.
"We expanded these bunkers within the last couple of years and laid some concrete to keep everything up to date," McFarlin said. "It represents the equivalent of about 300 million loaves of bread."
The temporary ground storage system has become an efficient way to handle the large volume of grain arriving during harvest. The goal is to fill them up to capacity every year.
"This is a process that we've used the last handful of years. Really is a very efficient way to handle grain and harvest," McFarlin explained.
After the bunkers are filled over the next couple of weeks, crews will cover the grain with large tarps and rely on an underground aeration system to maintain its quality through the winter.
"Gets trucks dumped quickly. It's an efficient way to build storage," McFarlin said. "We'll get these piles built in about two weeks. We'll get them covered with tarps. We have aeration underneath them to keep the grain in condition. It'll be good for the winter."
Harvest activity is expected to continue increasing as hot, dry weather helps more wheat reach the proper moisture content for delivery.
"Things are going to dry out really fast," McFarlin said. "That's really what everybody's waiting on, is that wheat to mature all the way into a dry down. We have to have a certain moisture content before we can dump it out here. With this heat, that's going to happen quickly.”
While the combines and trucks are often the most visible signs of harvest, McFarlin said the season is successful because of the teamwork behind the scenes.
"Thank you to my crew, to the harvest crews that are here, to all the producers in this area," he said. "It's a big team effort."
From the fields to the grain elevator, that coordinated effort keeps one of Montana's largest agricultural industries moving during its busiest time of year.
