From the pallets to the factory

October 9, Lepel /Own. inf./. From 645 hectares of harvested flax, 403 hectares of flax straw have been delivered to the flax factory.

October 9, Lepel /Own. inf./. From 645 hectares of harvested flax, 403 hectares of flax straw have been delivered to the flax factory. The main reason for the slowdown in delivery is adverse weather conditions, specifically rain. If you roll the straw into a dense, springy roll, it will start to heat up, steam, and rot from the inside. Therefore, harvesting requires fair weather when the fields are dry, and such days, as you can see, have been becoming fewer and fewer lately.

To speed up the drying of the straw, it is lifted by special tedders before the balers are used. The flax factory has two such units. They are operated, one might say, by production veteran Alexander Gayko and young tractor driver Yevgeny Matskevich. Some fields have even been processed twice by these men. Nevertheless, flax harvesting cannot be done without external assistance. The flax factory is most grateful to the students of the agricultural technical college, who come out daily, 35, 40, or even up to 55 people. Workers from KUP "Borovka", DRATs "Zhemchuzhina", KUP ZhKH "Lepel", and many others are also working excellently. They set the flax up in cones, which helps the straw dry faster. Then it is rolled into bales. It is only a pity that the fields are located far from the main production base of the flax factory, which creates additional transportation costs.

The workers of the flax factory are trying to use every hour of good weather. Previously, to know the weather forecast accurately, they requested information from the meteorological station. Scientific and technological progress is increasingly entering our lives, and so the flax factory workers have mastered the internet and track the weather in real-time through special websites, learning its forecast.

From 403 hectares, 864 tons of flax straw have been delivered. All the straw is delivered in bales; no sheaves are brought in this year. The harvested raw material is stored in a stack, and there is still space for what is still in the field. The stack can hold up to a thousand tons, so there is no need to build a new one yet. It was built relatively recently, so it can serve for many more years.

This year, the flax, according to the employees of the flax mill, has been grown quite well, with an average fibre number of one. It has been sufficiently retted, moistened, and then dried. Although there were a few rolls of fibre number 0.75, there were approximately as many of fibre number 1.25. The best flax straw, by tradition, is processed in the first half of September, when the stalks have been perfectly retted under the August dews, the first autumn rains have moderately washed them, and then the gentle sun and winds have dried them. This type of straw yields a higher output of long fibre.

According to the accounting department's calculations, from the 864 tons of prepared flax straw, at least 279 tons of flax fibre should be obtained. By the way, the processing of raw materials began almost immediately after its arrival at the mill. To date, five tons of long fibre and 27 tons of short fibre have been produced and are ready for shipment. Although long fibre has a higher price, its yield is determined by the properties of the varieties. As specialists mentioned in conversations, this year is a good one, and the fibre content of the crop is good.
The equipment at the flax mill, although old, is capable of processing flax stalks up to one and a half meters in length. The most optimal length is 80-90 centimeters, which is exactly the length of most of the grown and prepared flax straw.

Vasil MATYRKA.