Midwest Farm tour

[Tractorsdontfloat]

We purchased our own combine in 2006. We chose to buy used. I forget what we stuck into that machine, between the combine, 25 foot wide platform head, six row corn head which was a pretty basic head, and two head carts to haul them around when not on the combine. Probably had something in the $150k.

We upgraded all these two years later when we added more storage and started renting some ground from my dads other brother. This time it was a new John Deere 9770STS combine, 35 foot platform, new chopping corn head, and header carts sufficient to haul each head. The staggering price of this package was north of $500K.

As to Hula’s question. Our corn primarily gets hauled from field to farm, gets run through a grain dryer, and put into storage. Once dry and in storage, it gets hauled to an ethanol plant and made into ethanol.

Our soybeans, we grow a few varieties of beans that are suitable for food grade usage. We deliver these to a company in southern WI, where most of them get shipped to Korea where they are made into things like tofu and a number of other things, but are primarily for human consumption in some form.

 

[termiteguy]

This thread is awesome my hopefully soon to be son in law is also a farmer in Kansas steer and soy beans. My stepdaughter loves it there went to college in Kansas met him never moved back my wife was just there last month for a visit I want to go soon

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Was it something like this monkey?

This is my current combine I run. We run a pair of these. This on has a chopping corn head on it.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

I’ll finish the history up here then I can move onto the cropping in future posts.

In 2007 we added 110,000 bushels of storage. The storage on farm at that time was a total of about 60,000. So this damn near tripled total on farm storage. I believe the comments we made amongst ourselves was “This will probably be the last storage we build here until our grandkids build more”. I might add the 110,000 was two 55.000 bins side by side. Boy were we wrong.

In 2010, we discontinued potato operations. As a result, we worked a deal to trade some land with a neighbor farm who got rotational ground from us to grow potatoes, we in turn got a larger acreage from them to grow primarily corn, but corn and soybeans. This grew our total corn production from the 700 acre area to something around 3000 acres. More storage! We added a single 150,000 bushel bin in 2010, and upgraded our dryer.

2011 brought more acreage to the farm as my dads second brother I mentioned earlier decided to retire. He farmed next door, and chose to rent us his entire farm. This added about 1200 additional acres to our operations. We had been renting roughly 400 acres in the prior few years already, so his total acreage was about 1600.

With that acreage, we managed with equipment and such for a couple years, but did add a second harvester that year. In 2015, we added yet more storage. This time a single 250,000 bu bin, a bigger wet bin, and a new, bigger, better dryer. A major overhaul in our grain handling and receiving was made then too.

This is where we sit currently, and what you will see in pictures to come. We have about 635,000 total bushels of corn storage, we use my uncles 50,000 bushels of storage down the street to store our soybeans. We run two John Deere S680 model combines, and have 12 row chopping corn heads and 40 foot Draper platforms for each.

I’ll get into the planting process next.

 

[FlatNv]

Great thread .. thanks for taking the time, just the ripple effect in simple crop change is crazy , love the insight to other businesses especially farming.

 

[DrunkenSailor]

This is a life that I have no idea about but I have always been curious of. The great thing about threads like this is if you ever decide to write a book about your life the outline will already be done.

It sounds like you have grown the farm by leaps and bounds. As a Californian with no knowledge whatsoever I hear about large corporations taking over family farms and forcing the family farmer out. How much truth is in that and has it affected your level of growth?

 

[HydroSkreamin]

This is a life that I have no idea about but I have always been curious of. The great thing about threads like this is if you ever decide to write a book about your life the outline will already be done.

It sounds like you have grown the farm by leaps and bounds. As a Californian with no knowledge whatsoever I hear about large corporations taking over family farms and forcing the family farmer out. How much truth is in that and has it affected your level of growth?

Great comment and question!

Tractorsdontfloat, you might want to explain why you have to dry the corn, and what it takes to do that. That’s an operation in itself.

 

[Willie B]

...This is all really interesting... reminds me a lot of horse ranching in Oklahoma and to get anywhere had to drive miles and miles of back roads through large and varying farms...one car in 30 miles was considered heavy traffic...
...Same goes for when I hit the back roads of Butte and Yuba counties where I part time live...
...Even though I’ve driven a few smaller tractors and a D9 dozer
... I would love to spend just one day driving one of your outrageous farm implements...
...Ok...enough of my self indulgent crap...Carry on...We are waiting......

 

[Jed-O]

Great thread! Welcome and thanks for sharing!

 

[MeCasa16]

Makes me miss the family cash crop farm I grew up on between Westfield and Oxford. We did about 1200 acres of corn and 1000 soybeans. Neither my brother or I wanted to take it over so my parents sold it. Some days I still really regret that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Headless hula]

Makes me miss the family cash crop farm I grew up on between Westfield and Oxford. We did about 1200 acres of corn and 1000 soybeans. Neither my brother or I wanted to take it over so my parents sold it. Some days I still really regret that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Just think, you could've been hanging out at the old hula hut with me and Mark.
I bet he knows your family.....


I'd also be wiling to bet you've heard of gumz farms. I did a bunch of work down there a couple years ago. They grow spuds, onions, and mint. They're just outside of Oxford. They probably bought your folks' land.

 

[SoCalDave]

Child labor?

Back then, (early eighties) our snap bean seed all came in fifty pound bags, and my job during planting season was to help my father by setting the bags on the edge of the flatbed they were stacked on, opening the bags and helping him fill the planter. He would plant until the planter was empty, and I’d have the few bags prepped and ready.

Boy that statement brings back a lot of memories of my childhood/youth as well, spent many a hours loading the planter with seed/fertilizer. Finally graduated to the big Deere's pulling fold-up disc in the fields. Looking forward to your story...

 

[72Hondo]

Maybe too soon as the story is still going and I realize the path one follows is usually what they grew up doing.

What makes one farm vegetables and cash crops as opposed to cattle?

Here in Texas (might be a Region thing) seems everyone does cattle.

I love the fact your living off the land. Would love nothing more than that. I spent some time in east Texas talking to ranchers, visiting dairy farms, etc.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[monkeyswrench]

Was it something like this monkey?

This is my current combine I run. We run a pair of these. This on has a chopping corn head on it.

View attachment 737122

Yep, you don't realize the size until you're trying to squeeze by...both of us on the shoulders! My 3500 looked like a toy, and I was towing my 40ft goose with three cars from Iowa. Didn't know they had a "road speed" either!


Hey, I thought farmers out your way spent their spare time building roundy-round cars or tractor pullers J/K...but I do know there was an outfit that way that sold used floatation tires. Near impossible to find a set of 66x43's out here!

 

[Bullet28]

Great thread, looking forward to reading more. My Dad grew up farming in Iowa. We would go back and visit my uncle when I was 10-12 those were great vacations.

 

[Headless hula]

Great thread, looking forward to reading more. My Dad grew up farming in Iowa. We would go back and visit my uncle when I was 10-12 those were great vacations.

Was this yoooore ride?

Sorry... all I hear in my minds eye is "holiday road"...

 

[DC-88]

Very cool thread thanks for sharing . To what extent does or has crop insurance come into play with that much on the line ? I have a bunch of friends who do 20 - 80 ac. of crops like avos and citrus that are usually safe + insured but definitely get wiped out from time to time. In my biz we lay it on the line as well, but with a little more to go on than hoping mother nature doesn't have a #metoo moment

 

[Bullet28]

Was this yoooore ride? View attachment 737138


Sorry... all I hear in my minds eye is "holiday road"...

That’s a sweet ride and great movie, we drove back in a 65 Impala first trip middle of summer. We had a plug in AC with ice it would melt in no time.

 

[NicPaus]

Sounds just like my Families farms in Iowa. Crop rotation they do corn and beans. Some cattle and sheep and other Uncle lot of hogs. Used to go back there every year as kids. Learned how to work hard helping my Grandpa on the farm. My 94 year old Grandma can out work most millenials here in so cal. Great thread.

 

[HNL2LHC]

Great thread keep the posts coming!!! It is very interesting to hear what it takes to run a farm and hear of your growth.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Thanks for the great comments guys. I’ll keep going on the story later today, and try to answer the questions you’ve asked. Right now, just enough time to read up to date and get my arse to work. Happy commute everyone.

 

[fmo24]

Is winter used for machines maintenance and upgrades? I would imagine lots of welding and grinding to keep some of those running and working

 

[K-DOG]

I was born in Oconomowoc WI, just outside of Milwaukee but moved to San Diego when I was 5. Been back a few times and I'm always in awe of all the farms and how they work.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Commute was hell this morning. Gotta love busy roads. Not even a neighbor to wave at today.

 

[snowhammer]

Great comment and question!

Tractorsdontfloat, you might want to explain why you have to dry the corn, and what it takes to do that. That’s an operation in itself.

Is there a reason other than the hypnotic aroma for those of us downwind of the dryers?

 

[76 Southwind]

Yep this thread brings back great memories of visiting relatives on the farm in Minnesota !!! Funny how driving a big ass Deere was fun as a kid.. Thanks for sharing...

 

[monkeyswrench]

Ok...your commute is a few miles to the farm/fields? Heavily treed no less? You could hunt...on your way to work?!

Is there a reason other than the hypnotic aroma for those of us downwind of the dryers?

I think it has to do with storage time...but yes, the smells coming off a farm are much better than those coming off a feed lot!

 

[MeCasa16]

Just think, you could've been hanging out at the old hula hut with me and Mark.
I bet he knows your family.....


I'd also be wiling to bet you've heard of gumz farms. I did a bunch of work down there a couple years ago. They grow spuds, onions, and mint. They're just outside of Oxford. They probably bought your folks' land.

One of these times I visit my parents I’ll have to take a ride up there. I can’t wait to see the Kryptonite when she is all done with the 400r on the back.
I knew of the Gumz but never met them. We sold to the Lindner family. They also had around 7000 acres they worked.

My step dad and his brother had bought the original farm in the 60’s and slowly kept adding to it until their retirement in the early 2000’s. Their last name was Druce. I sure miss growing up on that farm. I didn’t appreciate it as a kid.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Headless hula]

This shed is filled with spuds.

 

[BHC Vic]

This thread makes me want to move and start a new life. I love what I do but if I could see myself doing anything else it would be farming.

 

[Headless hula]

This thread makes me want to move and start a new life. I love what I do but if I could see myself doing anything else it would be farming.

There's construction work here too vic, just not the amount you're used to. Smaller scale big time. Pay and scope....

 

[milkmoney]

This thread makes me want to move and start a new life. I love what I do but if I could see myself doing anything else it would be farming.

You think your broke now lol.

Try to start farming as a career..[emoji39][emoji202]

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[troostr]

I dig this thread for so many reasons. Where in NM does your dad stay in the winter? If he misses the farm he is more than welcome to come by ours. Our dads are close in age, he can hang with my dad. I would love to show him through the “antique” stuff.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Maybe too soon as the story is still going and I realize the path one follows is usually what they grew up doing.

What makes one farm vegetables and cash crops as opposed to cattle?

Here in Texas (might be a Region thing) seems everyone does cattle.

I love the fact your living off the land. Would love nothing more than that. I spent some time in east Texas talking to ranchers, visiting dairy farms, etc.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

It probably has as much to do with markets and productivity of the ground. For us here with the veggies, we have the processing plants, and the irrigation. For the Texas ranchers, there’s butcher plants, and the dry climates are well suited for grazing and cattle feed.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

One of these times I visit my parents I’ll have to take a ride up there. I can’t wait to see the Kryptonite when she is all done with the 400r on the back.
I knew of the Gumz but never met them. We sold to the Lindner family. They also had around 7000 acres they worked.

My step dad and his brother had bought the original farm in the 60’s and slowly kept adding to it until their retirement in the early 2000’s. Their last name was Druce. I sure miss growing up on that farm. I didn’t appreciate it as a kid.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Yes, I know a couple of the Gumz’s. They are good guys. I know of the Lindners as well, but personally do not know them. They have a big operation though.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

I dig this thread for so many reasons. Where in NM does your dad stay in the winter? If he misses the farm he is more than welcome to come by ours. Our dads are close in age, he can hang with my dad. I would love to show him through the “antique” stuff.

They have a place just south of T or C, down on the south side of Williamsburg.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

‘Bout time you got after this! Nice work, and keep it coming.

You might want to cover all the equipment necessary, rough cost of new, maintenance concerns/timing/costs.

How much air pressure you running in the tires? All eight of them get the same pressure? What’s it weigh?

Thanks JB. Will try to cover as much of the equipment stuff as I can.

Tire pressures vary some depending on task, and how the implement is attached. For heavy stuff attached to the three point hitch, we run up near 30 psi all the way around. For stuff hooked on the drawbar, we may run up near thirty if it pulls easier, or drop down to as low as single digits if it pulls hard. I can elaborate later on drawbar vs three point hitch if your wondering the difference.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

This is a life that I have no idea about but I have always been curious of. The great thing about threads like this is if you ever decide to write a book about your life the outline will already be done.

It sounds like you have grown the farm by leaps and bounds. As a Californian with no knowledge whatsoever I hear about large corporations taking over family farms and forcing the family farmer out. How much truth is in that and has it affected your level of growth?

There is some of that happening here in Cheeseland, but around us specifically, there are some larger farms that seem to keep getting larger, and the little guy keeps getting pushed out. The thing to keep in mind though, is many if not all of these large farms are still family owned. They may not look like anything but a huge corporate farm, but actually are still a family owned farm that just hires all the labor done.

I know all too well even at my size that as much as I am at home in a tractor seat, I am still forced at times to be a business man and spend time in an office. Our business is primarily operated strictly by us, the family. Even though the acreage is over 5000, we do it all with minimal added labor. Myself, two brothers, one brother-in-law, one full time hired guy, one part timer that basically just drives truck hauling grain to ethanol plant, and a retired father to help out. We do usually hire a couple seasonal drivers at harvest along with my wife and sister in laws. Otherwise we do it all ourselves. Many other farms around, even a few much smaller than us, the owner hasn’t actually driven a tractor in many years. They’re just office bosses.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Ok...your commute is a few miles to the farm/fields? Heavily treed no less? You could hunt...on your way to work?!


I think it has to do with storage time...but yes, the smells coming off a farm are much better than those coming off a feed lot!

Where I took that pic, there is a pine plantation of 75 acres or so that I drive past, but mostly open fields and a few hedge rows along the street. Seems how I own most of the land between home and work, yeah during season I pretty much can yes.

As for the smell coming off he dryer, yeah that’s enough to make it worth while, but I’ll delve into that as I go.

 

[monkeyswrench]

View attachment 737174
This shed is filled with spuds.

That ain't the kind of shed most of us are used to! That's a damn warehouse...

It's funny, to think about property size and such on the scale of a farm. I was happy as hell getting my house in Alta Loma (Ca, for the Midwest folk) with a whopping 1/2 acre. Now, I have 10...and trying to come up with a plan for a 40 acre place further out, or at least buy a neighboring 10. Then you see this...a "smaller" operation...5000 acres. When I moved out here, people in Cali had a hard time understanding what 10 acres was. I explained it like this, 660' on a side, or an 1/8 mile... Wow, 500 times my lot. I could mis-place all kinds of stuff!

 

[snowhammer]

It probably has as much to do with markets and productivity of the ground. For us here with the veggies, we have the processing plants, and the irrigation. For the Texas ranchers, there’s butcher plants, and the dry climates are well suited for grazing and cattle feed.

It still amazes me that as this country was being settled, those folks were able to distinguish between good farm land and poor, land that was workable vs grazing land. Not only on a large scale as in upper midwest vs arid southwest, but also within a smaller parcel i.e. a square mile. They were so in tune with the land that they figured out water flows, how to find sand and stone vs heavy clay, even ph and acidity levels. All of this without tech, gps, sonar, and aerial mapping.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Someone asked, and I can’t seem to locate it currently. The question was what we do this time of year. With all the storage of grain I mentioned earlier (roughly 625,000 bushels of corn, 50,000 bu soybeans) we have to haul most of that somewhere. As I mentioned, our best market locally is to ship directly to an ethanol plant. We have a few local grain elevators that we can sell to, but they would buy from us, and ultimately end up taking our corn to one of the same end users (ethanol plants) as we can, so we eliminate the middle man when we can.

We have four ethanol plants that are all about an hours drive from our facility. We own five semi tractors, and four grain trailers to be able to haul with. Consider this. Each trailer can legally haul roughly 1000 bushels per load. 675,000 bushels total storage. Simple math is 675 trucks of grain need to leave the farm per year. Keeps at least a few guys busy when most days we only have two or possibly three trucks on the road, and generally two or possibly three loads each per day.

We also do most all our own service on our equipment. Currently I have one truck, two tractors, and one planter in my shop working on them prepping for season.

Here’s a few pics I took while working on the planter today.

This is our primary tillage tractor. It’s a 560 horsepower, John Deere 9530T.

Here’s a pic of my planter. I’ll dive into that next. The tractor is a John Deere 8330. That is a 275 hp tractor with tires.

You can see we have some parts taken off currently as we are servicing it.

 

[monkeyswrench]

Someone asked, and I can’t seem to locate it currently. The question was what we do this time of year. With all the storage of grain I mentioned earlier (roughly 625,000 bushels of corn, 50,000 bu soybeans) we have to haul most of that somewhere. As I mentioned, our best market locally is to ship directly to an ethanol plant. We have a few local grain elevators that we can sell to, but they would buy from us, and ultimately end up taking our corn to one of the same end users (ethanol plants) as we can, so we eliminate the middle man when we can.

We have four ethanol plants that are all about an hours drive from our facility. We own five semi tractors, and four grain trailers to be able to haul with. Consider this. Each trailer can legally haul roughly 1000 bushels per load. 675,000 bushels total storage. Simple math is 675 trucks of grain need to leave the farm per year. Keeps at least a few guys busy when most days we only have two or possibly three trucks on the road, and generally two or possibly three loads each per day.

We also do most all our own service on our equipment. Currently I have one truck, two tractors, and one planter in my shop working on them prepping for season.

Here’s a few pics I took while working on the planter today.

This is our primary tillage tractor. It’s a 560 horsepower, John Deere 9530T.
View attachment 737359

Here’s a pic of my planter. I’ll dive into that next. The tractor is a John Deere 8330. That is a 275 hp tractor with tires.
View attachment 737361
You can see we have some parts taken off currently as we are servicing it.

Ok, the tillage tractor is a trip. I've only been around antique stuff...tracks and a steering wheel?! Cool!

...the planter though...first thing that popped into my head was RD's posts from Miami, looks like a billion dollar CC with a herd of outboards!

 

[Ol Man]

Thanks for taking your time to do this write up for us.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

The planter.

This is a John Deere model 1725 stack fold planter. This planter is 16 rows, spaced at 30 inches apart. Yes, that means it is 40 feet wide. It is hung on the three point hitch, directly on the back of the tractor. It is not towed on the drawbar like a boat trailer is towed behind a pickup. When the planter is not in the ground, no part of it is touching the ground. It is fully carried by the tractor.

The planter is run by hydraulics, and has a tire that has a speed sensor on it to detect motion and speed to tell it it is on the ground and how fast to run. That’s the basic concept anyway.

The seed unit is mounted directly on the bottom of the seed hopper. The yellow stuff is the plastic seed box. Here is a little closer shot of one side of the seed unit.

The tube that is attached to the unit is a vacuum tube. The vacuum holds the seed to the seed plate. I only use vacuum planters, but some other planters use mechanical seeding mechanisms called finger pickup units for corn, and a cup unit to seed beans. Vacuum units are much more positive, and much simpler, but a but more expensive. Some new units are starting to offer electric drive to drive rather than gear or hydraulic drives.

Here is a couple shots of different types of seed disks. First is a soybean plate. This is a three row, 108 cell plate.

This is a 56 cell plate I use for snap beans.

And a closeup of the corn disc. Notice it is only a single row, 40 hole plate.

All three are showing the side of the plate that the seed sets against. Both bean cell plates have a dimple, or cell, that the seed sets into, and the vacuum is being applied to the opposite side of the disc, holding the seed in the cell. The corn plate, you might notice, basically has the seed sitting on a flat surface. Other parts of the unit have scrapers to shift seed slightly to prevent doubles. There is also a knock out wheel on the outside of the disk that pikes each hole after the seed falls off to make sure the seed holes don’t get plugged.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Ok, the tillage tractor is a trip. I've only been around antique stuff...tracks and a steering wheel?! Cool!

...the planter though...first thing that popped into my head was RD's posts from Miami, looks like a billion dollar CC with a herd of outboards!

Hahaha! Yeah kinda does have a ton of outboards look doesn’t it!

 

[Bobby V]

Our soybeans, we grow a few varieties of beans that are suitable for food grade usage. We deliver these to a company in southern WI, where most of them get shipped to Korea where they are made into things like tofu and a number of other things, but are primarily for human consumption in some form.

How is the soybean export market this year compared to last year?

 

[BHC Vic]

That ain't the kind of shed most of us are used to! That's a damn warehouse...

It's funny, to think about property size and such on the scale of a farm. I was happy as hell getting my house in Alta Loma (Ca, for the Midwest folk) with a whopping 1/2 acre. Now, I have 10...and trying to come up with a plan for a 40 acre place further out, or at least buy a neighboring 10. Then you see this...a "smaller" operation...5000 acres. When I moved out here, people in Cali had a hard time understanding what 10 acres was. I explained it like this, 660' on a side, or an 1/8 mile... Wow, 500 times my lot. I could mis-place all kinds of stuff!

Lol right!? I’m think man this 1/2 acre is a ton of room. I can’t even imagine


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Here’s the other side of the seed box. You can see it has what looks like a gearbox mounted on the side.

This is actually the back end of the drive shaft, and is an electronic clutch. It gives me individual row shutoff so I do not overlap seed in already planted areas. Below the clutch is a depth wheel for the seed opener discs. There is one on each side of the seed opener discs. These set the depth at which the seed is placed in the soil. These have stops that are adjustable by quarter inch increments.

This pic, I’ve removed both the depth wheel and the seed opener disc on one side, and you can see the seed tube, and how it sits between these two discs, feeding the seed from the unit to the soil. These seed tubes have an electric eye on them that counts the seeds as they fall past to monitor and adjust seeding rate.

The stainless tube is a fertilizer tube that allows me to add a small amount of fertilizer directly into the seed tube. The threaded spindle is what the opener disc attaches to. You can also see the stack of spacer shims that allow me to properly space the opener discs to each other. This helps make the proper seed furrow in the soil so the seed spaces better by minimizing seed roll once it hits the ground.

 

[BHC Vic]

There's construction work here too vic, just not the amount you're used to. Smaller scale big time. Pay and scope....

There’s an instructor in your area named mark Olsen. He’s the flooring instructor. Been talking to him about it. I wouldn’t have a problem getting a job, I’d slide right in.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk