Then, the heavier wheat heads bend while the lighter darnel remains upright. Just before harvest, workers go through the fields picking it out. It is poisonous and can make people very ill if any is left and gets ground into the flour. The months between Passover and Pentecost, April to June, are the harvest season. Appropriate grain ceremonies took place in the Temple at these times.
Barley ripens first while the wheat follows a few weeks later.
Spelt was a kind of wild wheat. A sickle is a smaller implement than a scythe and it is more convenient for certain tasks. The word sickle or scythe is always used in the Bible in connection with reaping. It may be a simple command not to put your sickle into your neighbour's field to steal his crops. Either way, farmers reaped the harvest by hand in this primitive way.