Multigenerational farms are not an uncommon thing; many families have worked the same pieces of land for decades, expanding and developing as needed while still harnessing the foundational knowledge that has been passed down through the years.

And as it turns out, there are also multigenerational custom harvesters.

The Schemper family has been running a custom-harvesting operation since the 1950s, when patriarch and farmer Jerry Schemper turned a drought year into a business opportunity by travelling to the wheat belt to drum up customers he could harvest for.

Now, two generations down the line, JC Schemper, his brother Jared Schemper, and his sister Janel Schemper are working alongside their dad, LaVern Schemper, their mother, Carlene Schemper, and their uncle, Lonny Schemper, to provide custom harvesting services to some of the same customers that Jerry locked in more than 65 years ago.

It’s worth mentioning, too, that spouses of family members also lend a hand when needed, and JC’s three children, ages 17, 12 and 9, represent the fourth generation of Schempers involved in Schemper’s Harvesting.

“It's a big family operation. We all have different ownership of various equipment, and we divide it up accordingly. We can still work together as a family, but there’s no hard feelings over money. So that's the biggest thing for us is what you cut is what you get,” says JC.

“We all have a very good work ethic, knowing at the end of the year what it takes to make this work, and it works for us. Not every family can work like this. We run nine machines in total and five grain carts down here. For me, if I get a call from, let's say, 100 miles north and they have wheat ready, I can send two machines because I have managers out here. We're able to split things up without losing efficiency, and that's pretty big for our customers.”

Custom harvesters do exactly as their name suggests; they are contracted by farmers to harvest their fields and then truck it to the elevators. Typically, custom harvesters start in the southern United States and work their way north, following the wheat harvest. The Schempers, based in Nebraska, begin their custom harvest run in May in Oklahoma, then move through Texas, Kansas, back into Nebraska, and up into Montana.

“We just kind of hopscotch our way through the Midwest,” says JC.

“In this area right here, there's just no available labor. So, I mean, they hire all of us crews to come in here because we bring the labor with us. And this town we're staying in, Davidson, Oklahoma, is a town of, you know, 450 people (300 people actually). So, there's just no labor in this area. So, they bring us in here, we come in and cut it all, and we just pack up and go to the next stop.”

Janel, who writes for the agriculture publication High Plains Journal, says her crew also travels to the Dakotas, as far north as the Canadian border, before heading back to Nebraska for the fall harvest.

For the Schempers, the custom harvest starts around May 25, and they cut wheat from then until around September 10. Then, from around mid-September to Thanksgiving, they harvest soybeans, corn, and milo.

And while JC, Jared and Janel have been literally grandfathered into the business – Janel has been out on the harvest since she was six months old and was running a combine full-time at the age of 13, while Jared says his first combine ride was at just 10 days old – JC did test the waters of other career paths in the business before deciding the custom harvest life was the only one for him.

In 1997, he did an internship at Case IH, but “sitting inside four walls every day” just wasn’t doing the trick. Once spring rolled around, he knew he’d rather be following the wheat harvest north.

“Obviously, my dad taught me the most, but I got a lot more mechanical skills working at Case IH… But there’s something about that season when April comes around and you're starting to think about harvest. All you want to do is go harvest something, and I thought at the time working at Case IH was a good experience, but not a commitment for me to do that,” says JC.

“That's what I like about harvest. It's something new every day. Not only do you get to be a mechanic on this stuff, but you also get to drive this stuff. You get to see what works and what doesn't work. It's something new every day, and as a custom harvester, you get to travel to different states. So, you're in Oklahoma today, you might be in Kansas tomorrow, you'll be in Montana in 30 days. That’s probably the best part about it, we get to travel all the time and meet different people.”

“The best part about it is you get to go to a new environment, a different town, and see all the new people there in a different county,” says Jared, expressing similar sentiments as his older brother.

And it’s not just a family operation for the actual family members; the hired crew also creates a makeshift family amongst themselves and within some of the locations they travel to, as they spend sometimes as much as two weeks in one spot. This is a unique experience, unlike travelling for leisure, where you don’t necessarily get to really know the folks in the communities as you blow in and blow out for a day or two.

“Out here on harvest, you get to be in a community for two weeks. You get to know the guys at the elevators, the guy at the fuel station, the guy at the quick stop, and the farmers, too. These are lifelong relationships you can call on throughout your life. That's what the crew members really like about it.”

And a big pro of that relationship building within the communities they harvest for is that it results in about 95 per cent of their business being repeat customers. Even with a delayed start and additional holdups due to weather, which was the case this year, the Schempers’ customers will wait it out, knowing they're coming, and that when they do arrive, they’re bringing the best equipment and crew.

“A guy that I cut for Austin White; he’s one of our third-generation farmers. I cut for his granddad, his father, and now for him. Another one is Jason Callum. He's out east of town here. His dad used to hire us, and Jason thought, ‘Well, I think buying a combine might be a better deal for me, and I’ll do it myself.’ After about five years of that, he decided to hire us back, so we're back to cutting for him, too, so that's been a very good customer for us,” says JC.

“We don't really get a lot of new people, but we do have times where we do, (we’re) able to get some more acres in areas, but we're pretty much recurring to the same people every year, and like I said, it just works for us.”

And, of course, reliable workers need reliable machines, and the Schempers have been using MacDon headers since 2014 with no plans to stop anytime soon. They seem to have started a trend: JC notes that “just about every cutter out here” is running a MacDon header.

Right now, the Schempers are running FD240 FlexDraper headers, and each sibling offers a laundry list of reasons why they haven’t looked back since switching to MacDon more than a decade ago. From reels and sickle bars and calibration to the quality of the cut with the ContourMax Contour Wheels Performance Option and being the best bang for your buck, the Schempers love it all and rely on it all to reach their annual goal of cutting 10,000 acres.

“I feel like with these headers, once you’re used to them, you can’t beat them. Setting them up for wheat to soybeans is very simple, you can have it done in 10-15 minutes… And I like the active spring flow. The minute you’re hitting something, it’s moving instead of just thinking about it like other products do,” says Jared.

“The reel on the FD2 is probably the biggest thing. It's a state-of-the-art, one-of-a-kind reel. And for that thing to just flip action, nothing bounces over the reel, even though it's down and tangled, we're not seeing anything coming over the reel,” says JC.

“This header here, very rarely have I ever had a calibration that would not work. With other brands we ran, we were always consistently having to call dealers to get them to work. I almost lost a job one time with another brand’s header. There was a rainstorm coming, they were talking like it was going to come in pretty good rain, and this guy wanted his field peas done that day, but he also wanted to get his wheat done,” he explains, saying they couldn’t get the headers set up and calibrated to do both crops.

“This guy was completely mad that I had one header that sat for two and a half hours just because it wouldn't calibrate. I'm on the phone with the dealer. I'm frustrated. The farmer's frustrated. The operator's frustrated. We all need to be going. With this header right here (FD240), I literally take two blue little stems, put them in the unlocked position, and I'm ready to go for flex. It's simple.”

Janel also has some words of praise for the FD240s.

“I love a MacDon header because I just feel like the sickle bar cuts it so evenly, and it brings it in and it’s just a steady flow, constantly,” she says.

“I like the sickle bar to the reel relationship, so it’s real close, even when it’s flex mode.”

“I like this header because it works well in a large range of crops and conditions. We will harvest winter wheat, spring wheat, durum, lentils, chickpeas, canola, soybeans, and part of our crew will also work on milo. This allows us to handle a variety of crops and work efficiently. And then the conditions too…this has the double knife drive, so there’s a sickle head at each end of the header, and then it crosses in the middle, so there are two sickles. That works well because if it’s tough, you won’t plug up your sickle, versus if you had one, it would plug up in really tough conditions.’

It’s not just the headers themselves that have won the Schempers over; it’s the quality-of-service MacDon provides before and during the custom-harvest season that has impressed them as well.

As Janel says, harvest time is go time, and there’s no time for messing around. Having a header that can be relied on is critical to keeping everything running smoothly.

“There was one time I had troubles with the drive shaft, and I had called MacDon and they drove two hours straight to me to get me a new piece, so I like the service you get with a MacDon too,” says Janel.

“When we come down here, you wouldn't believe how busy the MacDon crew was setting up everybody's headers for the year,” says JC.

“Not everybody has new ones, but the new ones will get set up here by the caravan, which they do every header the same way, so that's nice to have everybody kind of being able to get set up the same. But it's also the machines that have been running for a year. Things aren't quite the same as they were last year, when you look at the weight and balance of it. Get everything adjusted up for the year, and it's ready to go. Harvest support is what MacDon brings on the road for us, and that's a big deal for all of us harvesters, too, to have support when we buy this kind of stuff because not all the dealers have the knowledge of them.”

And for those thinking about investing in a MacDon header, Janel has a very simple piece of advice.

“I would say demo it, try it out, and you’ll be surprised; I was,” she says.

“When I went from a John Deere to a MacDon I was unsure of it, I was like, ‘Ah what are we getting ourselves into?’ But I quickly fell in love with it, and I’ve just always loved running a MacDon ever since, and wouldn’t go back, I don’t think, to another brand. I’m pretty happy with this and enjoy running it, so I would say demo it and see for yourself.”

To learn more about MacDon's FD2 FlexDraper®, click here or visit your local MacDon Dealer for more detail.

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