The Farming Year Begins to Turn

 Photos posted later

The Farming Year Begins to Turn

September in the Fields of the Dordogne

One of the things I have enjoyed most about driving through the Dordogne is watching the countryside change almost from one kilometer to the next.

At first, I simply saw beautiful French farmland. Green fields, freshly worked earth, sunflowers, corn, cattle pastures, small farms and villages tucked between the hills.

But after several days here, I began to realize that I was seeing something more specific.

I had arrived at that fascinating moment when the farming year begins to turn.

September is not quite summer and certainly not yet autumn. Some crops are still standing. Others are drying. Some have already been harvested. Fields that were productive only weeks ago are reduced to stubble. Other fields have been cultivated and are already being prepared for whatever comes next.

The photographs I took from the car became a record of that transition.

The countryside is not finished when the harvest comes

[Camera Photo 2] was one of the photographs that first made me look more carefully.

There are still a few bright yellow sunflowers scattered across a field that otherwise appears to have reached the end of its season. Beyond them are rolling fields, trees and scattered houses.

At first glance, it looks as though the flowers have simply been left behind.

But agricultural fields don’t all move through the season at precisely the same pace. Crops mature differently, harvesting schedules vary, and individual plants can survive along field margins or escape harvesting.

That is why these occasional brilliant yellow flowers are so interesting. They are little remnants of summer standing in an increasingly autumnal landscape.

Dordogne is an important sunflower-growing area. The French agricultural census recorded about 16,160 hectares of sunflowers in Dordogne in 2020, making sunflower one of the department’s significant oilseed crops. 

What a harvested field actually looks like

[Camera Photo 3] tells the next part of the story.

Here the crop is gone.

All that remains is a field of short, cut stalks and plant residue.

This is one of those agricultural scenes that can look rather desolate if you don’t know what you are looking at. But it isn’t an abandoned field. It is a field between jobs.

Depending upon the crop and the farmer’s management plan, residue may be chopped and incorporated into the soil, left temporarily on the surface, baled where appropriate, or followed by cultivation and another planting.

The farming season doesn’t really stop.

It changes tasks.

The astonishingly pale soil

Then I began noticing fields like [Camera Photo 4].

The ground is extraordinarily light colored, almost white in places.

That pale, stony appearance is one of the visual characteristics that makes this part of France so interesting. Much of the Périgord sits within limestone country, and in cultivated fields the pale stone can become remarkably visible.

When vegetation is removed and the earth is worked, what looked like an ordinary green field suddenly reveals the geology beneath it.

It also explains why neighboring fields can look dramatically different depending upon whether they are covered with vegetation, recently harvested or freshly cultivated.

Sunflowers don’t always look cheerful

The most dramatic example of the changing season is [Camera Photo 5].

This is a sunflower field near harvest.

Gone are the upright green stems and enormous yellow faces that we associate with midsummer. The plants are now yellowing and brown. Their heads are bent downward. The leaves are drying.

To an unfamiliar eye, they can look dead.

Agriculturally, that is precisely the point.

The plants are completing their reproductive cycle and drying toward harvest maturity. The seeds contained in those heavy heads are the valuable part of the crop.

French sunflower production is primarily associated with oil. After the seeds are crushed, the oil enters the food market while the remaining protein-rich sunflower meal can be used in animal feed.

So the drooping brown sunflowers aren’t the sad remains of the season.

They are the crop approaching its purpose.

Green fields tell another story

Then there are photographs such as [Camera Photos 7 and 8].

Suddenly everything is intensely green again.

These fields help explain an important part of Dordogne agriculture. Grassland occupies an enormous portion of the agricultural landscape. The 2020 agricultural census recorded approximately 163,784 hectares of prairie and related grassland in Dordogne. 

That grass supports the department’s substantial livestock industry.

So while the sunflower and cereal fields are turning brown, the pastures may remain green.

That contrast is one of the things that makes September here so visually beautiful.

One field says summer is finished.

The next says absolutely nothing of the sort.

The mysterious yellowing fields

[Camera Photo 9] shows another stage of the agricultural calendar.

These low plants, turning from green to yellow, appear consistent with soybeans approaching maturity.

That identification makes agricultural sense here as well. Soybean acreage in Dordogne increased dramatically between the 2010 and 2020 agricultural censuses, from about 665 hectares to 2,851 hectares. 

Soybeans undergo a striking transformation before harvest. The foliage begins to yellow, leaves eventually drop, and the pods and stems dry.

What looks like a crop losing its health may actually be a crop reaching maturity.

I saw the same beautiful progression in [Camera Photo 14], where green, yellow and brown appear simultaneously across the field.

And [Camera Photo 24] shows the transformation even more dramatically. The field has become predominantly brown, suggesting a crop considerably farther along in its maturation.

These fields provided a wonderful lesson for me.

Brown doesn’t necessarily mean neglected.

Brown can mean ready.

Some fields are already being reset

Other photographs show the agricultural clock moving another step forward.

In [Camera Photo 10], the foreground field has been worked into long, gently curving lines that follow the contour of the land.

In [Camera Photos 18, 28 and 29], the fields are even more striking. The crop has disappeared almost completely and the soil has been worked, although an occasional sunflower remains.

Those lonely sunflowers are almost comical.

The farmer has moved on.

The sunflower apparently has not received the message.

But the larger story is important. Harvest is not simply an ending. Once a crop leaves a field, decisions begin about residue management, soil preparation, cover crops, winter cereals or the following year’s rotation.

The landscape is already being prepared for another agricultural cycle.

Then I found the machinery

One photograph suddenly revealed all the work behind those peaceful fields.

[Camera Photo 21] shows an extraordinary collection of agricultural equipment.

There are tractors and specialized implements packed together behind the fence, much of it the bright red that seems particularly at home on a French farm.

This photograph is an important counterpoint to all the pastoral landscapes.

Farming here may produce romantic scenery, but farming itself is highly mechanized work.

Fields must be planted, cultivated, cut, raked, baled, sprayed where applicable and harvested. Soil has to be prepared. Hay and forage must be handled. Equipment has to be repaired and maintained.

The postcard view gives us sunflowers.

The farmer needs hydraulics.

The farmyard behind the landscape

[Camera Photo 26] takes us even closer.

Here we see the working farm itself: tractor, implements, tanks, pallets, hoses, tools and equipment stored beneath a large open agricultural shed.

Nothing appears arranged for visitors.

That is exactly what makes the photograph useful.

This is the infrastructure behind the countryside I had been photographing all week.

And [Camera Photo 23] adds another piece. Behind the field are farm buildings containing large stacks of round bales.

Those bales may represent hay, other forage, straw or a combination depending upon the operation. From the photograph alone I can’t reliably distinguish the contents.

But their purpose within the agricultural system is clear.

Summer growth is being converted into something that can be stored.

And then, unmistakably, corn

There was one crop I didn’t have to puzzle over.

[Camera Photo 25] shows a mature cornfield standing immediately behind the road signs.

Corn, or maïs, is a major Dordogne crop. The 2020 census recorded approximately 25,477 hectares of grain and seed maize in the department. 

By September these plants can be tall, dry and brown, particularly as grain maize approaches harvest.

And I love the way I photographed it.

The signs point toward Bergerac and nearby villages.

Behind them stands the crop.

It is almost a perfect summary of this part of France. Agriculture isn’t something hidden miles away from the towns.

The road runs directly through it.

Pasture reaches almost into the villages

[Camera Photo 22] shows another relationship I came to appreciate.

A narrow road winds toward a little cluster of houses while a green field occupies the foreground.

There isn’t always a sharp boundary between village and farm.

The houses end.

The field begins.

Then another house appears.

Then another field.

The agricultural census reinforces what the landscape suggests. Dordogne isn’t devoted to a single crop. It supports cereals, oilseeds, maize, grasslands, fruit, vines and mixed crop-and-livestock farming. In 2020 the department also had more than 213,000 cattle, including a particularly important beef-cattle sector. 

That helps explain why pasture remains such a dominant feature of the countryside.

The farm is a system

Looking again at [Camera Photos 7, 8, 21, 23 and 26], I began to see connections that I had missed when I first took them.

There is pasture.

There are stored bales.

There is machinery to cut and handle crops.

There are sheds to store equipment.

There are fields producing grain and oilseeds.

And elsewhere along these same roads are cattle.

A farm isn’t a field.

It is a system.

And much of the Dordogne countryside is a network of these systems fitted together between forests, villages, streams and limestone hills.

The patchwork is part of the beauty

Perhaps my favorite wider landscapes are [Camera Photos 10, 18, 28 and 29].

The fields rise and fall rather than stretching endlessly toward a flat horizon.

One follows the contour of a hill.

Another stops at a stand of oak trees.

Another meets a hedgerow.

A farmhouse occupies a ridge.

A pasture fills the low ground.

Woodland forms the boundary beyond it.

The result is the beautiful patchwork that I have been seeing from the car every day.

But now I understand that the patchwork isn’t merely picturesque.

Every color represents something.

Green may be pasture or a growing crop.

Yellow may be a crop beginning to mature.

Deep brown may be soybeans nearing harvest.

Tall brown stalks may be maize.

Drooping sunflower heads may be filled with mature seed.

Pale earth may mean the crop has already left the field.

Fresh lines across the soil may mean the farmer is already preparing for the next one.

I thought I was photographing fields

When I took these photographs, I thought I was documenting the countryside.

Looking at them together, I realize I photographed something slightly different.

I photographed the agricultural calendar.

[Camera Photo 5] shows a crop approaching harvest.

[Camera Photos 9, 14 and 24] show plants changing as they mature.

[Camera Photo 25] shows mature corn still standing.

[Camera Photo 3] shows what remains after harvesting.

[Camera Photos 18, 28 and 29] show fields moving toward their next use.

[Camera Photos 7 and 8] show the grasslands that continue growing while the arable fields change around them.

[Camera Photos 21 and 26] reveal the machinery and infrastructure that make all of it possible.

And scattered throughout are farmhouses, barns, roads, hedges and tiny villages.

I had originally thought of this as the end of the farming season.

I don’t think that description is quite right anymore.

There really isn’t an end.

Harvest leads to cultivation. Cultivation leads to planting. Grass becomes hay. Hay becomes winter feed. One crop leaves the field so another can eventually take its place.

The colors change. The machinery changes. The work changes.

But the farming continues.

And once I understood that, the beautiful Dordogne countryside outside my car window became even more interesting.

I was no longer simply looking at fields.

I was watching one farming year quietly become the next.