Midwest Farm tour

[Tractorsdontfloat]

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!

Yes, that is a warehouse! The building that Hula posted is appropriately 250-300 feet long, by a little more than 100 feet wide. Potatoes are stored bulk in these facilities, usually about 18 feet deep. This building has two air systems in it, one on each end. The overhead door you see is a work space between air systems. Both air systems have two bins, and each bin holds roughly 50,000 hundredweight of potatoes. 200,000 cwt, or 20,000,000 pounds of potatoes. There are lots of these buildings around our area, some smaller, some bigger.

We personally have two storage sheds at our farm. One has two 60,000 cwt bins with a single air system. The other very similar to the one Hula showed with two air systems, four bins total, each bin holds 40,000 cwt each. Ours are currently rented to the neighbor that we trade land with.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Here is the front of the row unit. The coulter is a fertilizer opener disc. It cuts a slot that the tube behind it with the spray tip on it squirts a stream of fertilizer into the slot. This unit places a dose of fertilizer approximately two inches beside, and two inches below the seed.

The round black tube above the disc is where a pair of wheels called row cleaners mount. These wheels clear any large debris from in front of the row as the planter moves down the field. The rusty coulter will get replaced with a new one, and the bearings and seal replaced. The bearings are tapered roller bearings, just like you would find on your boat trailer wheel hubs.

 

[Headless hula]

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!

The warehouses, or packing sheds ate even bigger. Lol. They flume the potatoes from one building to another to move them.
A packing shed is where they get sorted, graded, packaged, etc...

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

I neglected to mention when showing the different seed disks why each has different amounts of holes. Corn and beans are planted at a wide range of populations across the country, and in several different row spacing. Corn is easily most popularly planted in 30 inch rows, but some plant narrower rows like 20 or 22 inch. And dry land to irrigated land both vary widely based on ground productivity. We plant 30 inch rows at 35,000 seeds per acre. But some go much lower like 24,000, others well into the 50,000s.

Soybeans can vary anywhere from 7 inches to 30 plus wide rows and range from around 100,000 seeds per acre up over 200,000. Again we do 30 inch rows and average around 140,000.

Our crops on average yield around 230 bushels on corn and 65 bushel beans. We do see 250 plus corn and over 70 bushel beans.

 

[Headless hula]

I neglected to mention when showing the different seed disks why each has different amounts of holes. Corn and beans are planted at a wide range of populations across the country, and in several different row spacing. Corn is easily most popularly planted in 30 inch rows, but some plant narrower rows like 20 or 22 inch. And dry land to irrigated land both vary widely based on ground productivity. We plant 30 inch rows at 35,000 seeds per acre. But some go much lower like 24,000, others well into the 50,000s.

Soybeans can vary anywhere from 7 inches to 30 plus wide rows and range from around 100,000 seeds per acre up over 200,000. Again we do 30 inch rows and average around 140,000.

Our crops on average yield around 230 bushels on corn and 65 bushel beans. We do see 250 plus corn and over 70 bushel beans.

Planting spacing dictates harvest?

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Planting spacing dictates harvest?

Only in the row spacing you need to buy your corn head for the combine. If you plant corn in 30 inch rows, you can’t use a 22inch spaced head. Also, unless all rows are equal, it is best to match the head to the planter. ie. I plant 16-30s. I should either run a 4, 8, or 16 row head. I use GPS to plant, so my rows are almost perfect, so I do get away with a12 row head. Also, the head should match the capacity of the harvester. My combines are big enough to run up to a 16 row head, and too big for anything smaller than 8 row.

Beans on the other hand, the platforms and drapers are a full width cut, and those do not matter what row spacing planted, just needs to be big enough to fill the combine sufficiently.

As for population planted, has nothing more than matching soil productiveness to potential so you can maximize yield without overspending on seed.

 

[JDub24]

Fuck rocket science... farmers take the cake after reading this!!

Mind blowing amount of knowledge. I’m just a dumb construction worker.

Thanks @Headless hula for pushing @Tractorsdontfloat for doing this. Such a wealth of knowledge.

And an extra thanks for @Tractorsdontfloat for taking the time to explain all of this. It’s amazing what farmers do for this country. Much appreciated!!

 

[Headless hula]

Fuck rocket science... farmers take the cake after reading this!!

Mind blowing amount of knowledge. I’m just a dumb construction worker.

Thanks @Headless hula for pushing @Tractorsdontfloat for doing this. Such a wealth of knowledge.

And an extra thanks for @Tractorsdontfloat for taking the time to explain all of this. It’s amazing what farmers do for this country. Much appreciated!!

I hope you understand he's just getting started. Planting season is quite near.
Ole mark has been busy prepping for a couple days. Once planting is done, he'll be cultivating, irrigating, fertilizing, and generally be busy as a one legged guy in an ass kicking contest.

You'd have to ask @TripleB about that though.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Fuck rocket science... farmers take the cake after reading this!!

Mind blowing amount of knowledge. I’m just a dumb construction worker.

Thanks @Headless hula for pushing @Tractorsdontfloat for doing this. Such a wealth of knowledge.

And an extra thanks for @Tractorsdontfloat for taking the time to explain all of this. It’s amazing what farmers do for this country. Much appreciated!!

Wealth of knowledge...ehh. Knowing my business and how to do it right? That’s what I strive for.

 

[JDub24]

Again... truly awesome what he has going on even in the “off season”. I wouldn’t even know where to start to plant flowers!!

You and your crew are what made/makes America great!! Endless dedication and back-breaking work. Most of us think we work hard but really have no idea. I absolutely appreciate the farmers of this country. I hunt a lot of their lands during the year and I am always impressed with the skill and precision involved with their trade.

I hope you understand he's just getting started. Planting season is quite near.
Ole mark has been busy prepping for a couple days. Once planting is done, he'll be cultivating, irrigating, fertilizing, and generally be busy as a one legged guy in an ass kicking contest.

You'd have to ask @TripleB about that though.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Planting is just a part of getting the seed in the ground properly. One of our biggest obstacles is wind erosion. We try our hardest to minimize this. Most fields, after harvest, get tilled and a cover crop added so there is some wind protection.

One other thing we do is utilize tillage practices in the spring to minimize soil exposure too. A few years ago we started doing a bunch of strip tillage. This tills just a narrow band where the seed will be planted, leaving the ground between the rows undisturbed.

Here are a few pics of this.

A field being strip tilled. This is previous season soybean stubble being tilled for corn.

A closer look

A nice look what the field looks like before and after tilling.

This is a photo from the cab of the planter as I plant into a strip tilled cover crop. The cover will get sprayed to kill it once the corn or beans get growing.

 

[monkeyswrench]

Wealth of knowledge...ehh. Knowing my business and how to do it right? That’s what I strive for.

Knowledge carries with it an inherent value, and thus, a wealth all it's own.

I have crossed paths with an eclectic group of humanity in my "travels". That said, I don't think I've ever run across such a spectrum as RDP has. It wasn't too long ago I was able to ask questions of an inmate working on a rocket...honest to God, space travel, rocket. Now, a farmer...modern era big time farmer...not hobby farm/ sell at the weekly market. The rocket surgeon may not know how to farm, but he probably eats. A farmer probably stays off the launch pad, but uses GPS and weather reports. Someone may not be "schoolin'" smart, but can still know a lot about their own craft. It's really a bitchin world if you look at it.

 

[Headless hula]

Mark, you should probably touch on the fact that the rows are string straight. It sure ain't cuz yooove been driving a big green tractor for 30+ years.

I think the GPS subject will floor the board shorts folks. Lolol....

 

[monkeyswrench]

Mark, you should probably touch on the fact that the rows are string straight. It sure ain't cuz yooove been driving a big green tractor for 30+ years.

I think the GPS subject will floor the board shorts folks. Lolol....

You mean GPS does more than show you traffic and the nearest Starbuck's?

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Mark, you should probably touch on the fact that the rows are string straight. It sure ain't cuz yooove been driving a big green tractor for 30+ years.

I think the GPS subject will floor the board shorts folks. Lolol....

Yeah, that was gonna be today’s lesson once I get time.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Good morning everyone. Early morning breakfast meeting with the local school district Administrator. Going through the agenda for next weeks meeting. Oh yeah, did I mention I’m also the local School Board President?.

Here’s a little pic I borrowed from a neighbor farm that has copyrighted this saying and started a side business with it. Pretty much sums me and this thread up in a nutshell!

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Good morning everyone. Early morning breakfast meeting with the local school district Administrator. Going through the agenda for next weeks meeting. Oh yeah, did I mention I’m also the local School Board President?.

Here’s a little pic I borrowed from a neighbor farm that has copyrighted this saying and started a side business with it. Pretty much sums me and this thread up in a nutshell!

View attachment 737485

And Hula, I’m getting you one of these for the tiki bar! No collection would be without!

 

[RichL]

I'm really enjoying this thread. Thumbs up to you, Sir.

 

[Taboma]

You wrote of row spacing, equipment wheel/tire spacing must be a factor, can the wheel/tire offset be altered ?

This thread is awesome, thank you sir

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

I'm really enjoying this thread. Thumbs up to you, Sir.

Thanks Rich.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

You wrote of row spacing, equipment wheel/tire spacing must be a factor, can the wheel/tire offset be altered ?

This thread is awesome, thank you sir View attachment 737494

Taboma,

Thanks for the question.

Simple answer is Yes. Longer answer is yes, it is. The front tires are usually spaced by the way the center dish is bolted to the rim, and to the front planetary drive. Also spacers are used to set any duals on the front or for really wide settings. The rear axles on most tractors are longer and the hubs can slide on the axle with just loosening wedges that hold the hub in place. Lots of air tool time and physical labor. It takes a couple guys about an hour to move a full set of rear duals and single fronts from one setting to another. I believe most tractors have a max center to center setting on the front tires at around 88" without having to add spacer hubs.

In my operation, everything we grow is on 30" spacing, so we haven't had to make any adjustments to our tractors for a while. This was a nice benefit to some of our changes over the years. All our tractors are spaced to straddle two rows with the inner, and four rows with the outer tires. The only exceptions are the track tractor that has 36" belts and is set as wide as it goes and sits at about 12 feet wide outside to outside, and the combines which staddle four and six rows with the dual tires.

Here in our area, most crops except the potatoes and carrots are based off a 30" spacing. This has the inner tires set at 60" on center, and outer duals at 120". Potatoes are primarily planted on 36" spacings, so tires are set at 72" centers, and 144" duals. I'll have to see if I can dig up a few pics of tractors at different spacings to show the differences. Carrots are planted more in beds with narrow rows, but still based off a 72" bed.

The additional thoughts would also include this. Most guys doing veggies around here, if they grow spuds, use very narrow, tall tires. Im talking like a 320-52 tire. These are something like 12-14 inches wide and 75 inches tall. this helps minimize the side hill pressure doing any damage when working in the fields. We primarily use a 480-52 tiire. These are more like 18-20 inches wide, and most of 6-7 feet tall. We can get away with a little wider tire even though narrower rows, but dont have the hilling and side load issues with the crops we grow. I might add that some guys, primarily those doing dairy, use some wider tires for especially hay cutting to get better floatation and do less compaction in a multi year crop.

 

[monkeyswrench]

This thread reminds me of something I witnessed in LA. I was working at a school...Normandie Elementary. It was on the corner of Florence and Normandie...think Rodney King riots, truck driver beat down...not where you want to work, ever.

Well, I'm doing my deal, and catch a whiff of something out of place. I look around, and sure enough, a modified stock trailer on the playground. I ended up talking to the lady, who's stock trailer was a mobile dairy rig. She explained she comes into inner-city schools, and shows kids where milk and dairy products come from. She was probably mid 40's, and said her dad started the idea years before. After talking with here and an administrator, I learned that some of these kids were multi-generational city dwellers. Large numbers have never left the confines of the city, and won't. I couldn't wrap my head around the concept. These kids had only seen the world through the filter of South Central

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

This thread reminds me of something I witnessed in LA. I was working at a school...Normandie Elementary. It was on the corner of Florence and Normandie...think Rodney King riots, truck driver beat down...not where you want to work, ever.

Well, I'm doing my deal, and catch a whiff of something out of place. I look around, and sure enough, a modified stock trailer on the playground. I ended up talking to the lady, who's stock trailer was a mobile dairy rig. She explained she comes into inner-city schools, and shows kids where milk and dairy products come from. She was probably mid 40's, and said her dad started the idea years before. After talking with here and an administrator, I learned that some of these kids were multi-generational city dwellers. Large numbers have never left the confines of the city, and won't. I couldn't wrap my head around the concept. These kids had only seen the world through the filter of South Central

That does not surprise me. That is one of my biggest issues with my job. I make a living doing what I need to to do the best job I can, raising the best crop I can, to feed a world of people who every day become a larger group much more disconnected to where their food comes from. Many of the regulations we have to follow are written by people who have never even stepped foot on a farm.

I understand it, deal with it, and do my best to make those that write the laws understand my concerns.

Tell your story! That’s all I can do.

 

[TripleB]

I havent read everything on the thread, so do you do your own hay?

That was my big farming experience had a 30 acre hay field that I cut, baled(kickers) and put up myself, but I didnt plant it

 

[buck35]

That does not surprise me. That is one of my biggest issues with my job. I make a living doing what I need to to do the best job I can, raising the best crop I can, to feed a world of people who every day become a larger group much more disconnected to where their food comes from. Many of the regulations we have to follow are written by people who have never even stepped foot on a farm.

I understand it, deal with it, and do my best to make those that write the laws understand my concerns.

Tell your story! That’s all I can do.

I'm a small potatoes guy with an orchard ,the regulations now are just mind blowing. Im pretty much a one man band, and I get a 2 inch thick book of paper to document everything every year.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Probably more than ten years ago now, we invested in a guidance system to help do documentation of our activities in the fields. This GPS system, built by the equipment manufacturer (John Deere), includes a touch screen controller, a globe on the top of the tractor cab, and a reference point tower to make the actions repeatable.

Initially when we bought these systems, we added three total. One for my planter, one for one other key tractor, and one for our tillage tractor. It also included a separate globe on a tripod just like a surveyor uses. This would be set up near where we were working. This became the reference point to give the three point accuracy. Point one the tractor, point two the satellite, point three the tripod receiver. After a couple years, the local Deere dealer developed a tower system, similar to cell towers for phones, except for the tractor network. This allowed us to eliminate the tripod, and gave extreme accuracy.

Today, we use this system to drive equipment up and down the field, document everything, and tie it with rate controllers to run and control fertilizer, seed, and other products as we go. And we have them on all tractors, rate controllers in all, and also use them on our sprayer and both combines. We do share them between machines at times though, as the one from the sprayer goes in a combine when done spraying for the year.

The yellow globe at the front center of the cab is the radio receiver. That plugs in right next to the windshield wiper motor.

Here is a screenshot of the GPS screen in the cab. This particular page shows multiple things happening all at once. The top half is actually the planter info. I was at 131.3 acres in the field, I was planting at 34,000 seeds per acre, and the little black bars were each individual row, and how they were planting in relation to the 34,000 setting. The green bars tell me I have each section on and working. My planter has three sections and drives. Drive one is rows 1-4, seconds is eight rows wide, the base section of the planter, which is 5-12, and the third is 13-16.

The bottom half is the fertilizer I’m applying. I am Targeting 20 gallons per acre, thus the right 20 with the target beside it. I’m actually applying the targeted amount, thus the left 20. And I still have 109 gallons left in the tank. Also, the little blue arrows under the black bars tell me each section is on and applying.

The right side of the screen is the guidance. The blue lines are the individual passes, white line is the pass I am locked onto, the little arrows allow me to shift side to side if needed to be exactly where I want to be. The green A tells me the autotrack is on, working and in control. The 2/5 tells me I’m on page two of five I have set up. I can have up to five active pages I can toggle through by touching that button.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

I havent read everything on the thread, so do you do your own hay?

That was my big farming experience had a 30 acre hay field that I cut, baled(kickers) and put up myself, but I didnt plant it

No sir. We do not do hay, as we do not do any animals. Had some as I was growing up, and cut my teeth baking hay, as any farm kid should!

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

When we first put guidance on the tractors, we knew the rows would be straight. I said it really early on. My father put me in a planter at age 12. He left me there to continue, I believe as much because he trusted me, but also taught me how to do it right. I was pretty good at following a marker line to plant pretty straight, but guidance is nice.

Some things that came along for the ride was fatigue or lack there of it, excellent guess rows (that’s what we call the gap between the edge rows pass to pass). Also, the ability to monitor everything around you, and the ability to cover more acres a day due to less overlap (mostly with tillage).

In today’s age, documentation of applications is a must, and having good records from the first day in spring to end of fall is extremely easy as everything we do with proper setup in the screens is recorded and can be reviewed to make future decisions.

 

[snowhammer]

Probably more than ten years ago now, we invested in a guidance system to help do documentation of our activities in the fields. This GPS system, built by the equipment manufacturer (John Deere), includes a touch screen controller, a globe on the top of the tractor cab, and a reference point tower to make the actions repeatable.

Initially when we bought these systems, we added three total. One for my planter, one for one other key tractor, and one for our tillage tractor. It also included a separate globe on a tripod just like a surveyor uses. This would be set up near where we were working. This became the reference point to give the three point accuracy. Point one the tractor, point two the satellite, point three the tripod receiver. After a couple years, the local Deere dealer developed a tower system, similar to cell towers for phones, except for the tractor network. This allowed us to eliminate the tripod, and gave extreme accuracy.

Today, we use this system to drive equipment up and down the field, document everything, and tie it with rate controllers to run and control fertilizer, seed, and other products as we go. And we have them on all tractors, rate controllers in all, and also use them on our sprayer and both combines. We do share them between machines at times though, as the one from the sprayer goes in a combine when done spraying for the year.

The yellow globe at the front center of the cab is the radio receiver. That plugs in right next to the windshield wiper motor.
View attachment 737649

Here is a screenshot of the GPS screen in the cab. This particular page shows multiple things happening all at once. The top half is actually the planter info. I was at 131.3 acres in the field, I was planting at 34,000 seeds per acre, and the little black bars were each individual row, and how they were planting in relation to the 34,000 setting. The green bars tell me I have each section on and working. My planter has three sections and drives. Drive one is rows 1-4, seconds is eight rows wide, the base section of the planter, which is 5-12, and the third is 13-16.

The bottom half is the fertilizer I’m applying. I am Targeting 20 gallons per acre, thus the right 20 with the target beside it. I’m actually applying the targeted amount, thus the left 20. And I still have 109 gallons left in the tank. Also, the little blue arrows under the black bars tell me each section is on and applying.

The right side of the screen is the guidance. The blue lines are the individual passes, white line is the pass I am locked onto, the little arrows allow me to shift side to side if needed to be exactly where I want to be. The green A tells me the autotrack is on, working and in control. The 2/5 tells me I’m on page two of five I have set up. I can have up to five active pages I can toggle through by touching that button.
View attachment 737651

I'm curious what your wheel slip % is pulling tillage equipment in your sandy soil vs heavier loamy soil. I assume it shows fuel consumption etc.

When I drove the neighbor's tractor during tillage, the screen would flash a white picket fence to warn the approaching end of a row. I was most surprised at how difficult it was to hold anything close to a straight line without GPS.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

One thing I’ve discovered over the past couple days while writing this is I don’t know that I have any really good pictures of the inside of the cab of any of my tractors.

Here’s one with both screens in the cab. The left one is the GPS, notice the bottom half is split into two products. The right screen is the tractor screen on the armrest. It tells me a lot of info about the action of the tractor.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

I'm curious what your wheel slip % is pulling tillage equipment in your sandy soil vs heavier loamy soil. I assume it shows fuel consumption etc.

When I drove the neighbor's tractor during tillage, the screen would flash a white picket fence to warn the approaching end of a row. I was most surprised at how difficult it was to hold anything close to a straight line without GPS.

It depends on the task and tool as well as the soil conditions. If it’s a task and tool that digs deep, I can see a 5-10% slip easy enough. In our lighter soils though we can pull larger equipment with less hp than the heavy clay soil guys can as a general rule. Most of our tillage equipment is between 32 and 46 feet wide. Traditional full field tillage tools I’m talking about here. Most stuff I run low slip, unless I get in tough conditions.

If I’m using our big track tractor with our chisel plow running primary spring planting tillage we put 14” sweeps on it, and they are spaced at 12 inches apart and we pull a roller behind, fuel usage can range between 25 and 30 gallons an hour. We can run about 5 mph and cover about 15 acres an hour with that setup, and will plant directly into the soil after one pass with that. But this is a hard pulling rig.

When I’m running my smaller tillage tractor, which is a twin to my planter tractor I posted a pic of a few posts back, with the strip till tool I run about seven miles an hour and cover near 30 acres an hour. The fuel usage in this is more like 15 gallons per hour.

My planter tractor is a bit over horsed for the planter, so I barely need to be off an idle to pull the planter. I think that operation is usually less than five gallons per hour. Actually, the two screen pic shows a 5.2 gal per hour usage, and zero slip.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Forgot to get a shot of the aerial photos of the farm itself, so I snapped a screenshot off google maps to give a better vision of the operation.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Here’s a couple shots from a couple summers ago as I was working in the fields around the farm. The grain setup was being updated and our last bin wasn’t even finished yet. And there’s only one grain leg at the time.

This is from the south looking north. The tall skinny tube in the center just left of the leg is the dryer. The dry grain leg is up and some pipes to storage bins in place, but the wet grain leg and piping is what the crane is in place for.

This one is of the dryer while drying corn. Note the steam. From the east looking west.

Another one of the hard at work dryer. The shop is in front, the bin on the left is the newest one, 72 feet across, 100 feet tall and holds 250,000 bushels.

 

[Headless hula]

Hell yea doooode. The pics tell the story. Maybe once it warms up a bit, and the snowbanks that've fallen off the eaves of the machine shed melt, you can line up the fleet of green monsters and take a pic.


As I previously mentioned.....


There's enough green iron on your farm to buy a fleet of dcb's................

The scale of $$$ it takes to run a "medium sized" operation that you do would make a shit ton of folks heads spin....


Carry on.

 

[Headless hula]

@Tractorsdontfloat =baller......

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

@Tractorsdontfloat =baller......

Hahaha! That makes me laugh.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Raided my brothers Facebook photos so I have a few good ones. Mostly harvest photos, but still a few I can use here.

One of the combines turning around, while one cart empties into a truck. Second cart right behind loaded and waiting to unload. Only about a million dollars of equipment in that one pic.

And an occasional wheat field too. Not every year here but when we can grow it for a profit, we do.

A different angle of the farm. The two buildings in the foreground are our potato storage buildings.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Sometimes I have to laugh. There’s guys that own farms around the area, and drive expensive Cadillac or other vehicles. They won’t let their hired guys touch the Wife’s $80,000 Caddy, but will hire any ole Joe to drive his $600,000 tractor.

Leather seats? Yup, I got that too!

 

[monkeyswrench]

Just loving it!
Everything about it is cool. Heavy equipment, Check. Good views, Check. Pride in work, Check. List goes on and on...too cool.

 

[arch stanton]

I was thinking a lot of people don't know how big an acre is so I thought I would help, there is about 43500 Sq ft per acre and there is 640 acres in a Sq mile so he's farming 8.2 Sq miles think about that on your drive to work in the morning.

 

[monkeyswrench]

I was thinking a lot of people don't know how big an acre is so I thought I would help, there is about 43500 Sq ft per acre and there is 640 acres in a Sq mile so he's farming 8.2 Sq miles think about that on your drive to work in the morning.

So what you're saying is, don't complain next time you have to mow your lawn?

 

[lbhsbz]

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?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Vegetables don't smell like cow shit, would be my guess

 

[Headless hula]

Just loving it!
Everything about it is cool. Heavy equipment, Check. Good views, Check. Pride in work, Check. List goes on and on...too cool.

Vegetables don't smell like cow shit, would be my guess

you're right. pig shit smells much worse. drive through Iowa or southern minnesota in the summertime.
only thing thats worse than that, is rotten potatoes. whwn the harvest goes bad due to inclement weather....

too hot, too rainy... frost, the list goes on....

it's a foul smell. from the smell of rotten vegetables, to the odor of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ lost....
it stinks.

last i read, 3-4 years ago, potatoes in wisconsin were a 4 BILLION dollar a year industry.
#2 in the nation for production for reds....



yea. that little 3# bag you bought at the store may have come from behind the cheddar curtain.

 

[troostr]

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.

Is your planter all JD? In our area Precision is the cats ass up grade to a JD planter and software. Our planter is maybe only 50% JD at this point.

 

[Headless hula]

I was thinking a lot of people don't know how big an acre is so I thought I would help, there is about 43500 Sq ft per acre and there is 640 acres in a Sq mile so he's farming 8.2 Sq miles think about that on your drive to work in the morning.

Thank you. Until recently, I had a little better than 10 acres. 435000 sf to do with as I felt. Clamp that down to 7200sf......
Lemme know what's that like.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Morning gang! Thanks for all the views and questions. Will try to catch up on the day later. Ethanol plant tour for the guys this morning, a quick meeting with the corn buyer, then back to the grind. Hopefully they will let me get a few pictures to share with y’all.

 

[Tractorsdontfloat]

Oh and by the way Arch, thanks for the math on the acres. Number is actually 43,560 sq ft, or in 30” rows, that’s 17,424 feet

 

[Singleton]

My FIL ran the family farm for many years. I did the books for him until he sold. He mostly did feed corn, wheat and barley. The amount of debt smaller family farms have to take on before planting season to only hope to break even or a small profit after harvest is nuts.

None of his kids wanted to come back home to run it so he sold it. Wife and I talked about it, but decided to pass, our older kids did not want to move to Clovis NM. In-Laws have a much better life now that they sold the farm. FIL got 80% of the sale, his brother and sister split the other 20, since they did not work the farm at all and my FIL ran it for 30 years.

 

[buck35]

My FIL ran the family farm for many years. I did the books for him until he sold. He mostly did feed corn, wheat and barley. The amount of debt smaller family farms have to take on before planting season to only hope to break even or a small profit after harvest is nuts.

None of his kids wanted to come back home to run it so he sold it. Wife and I talked about it, but decided to pass, our older kids did not want to move to Clovis NM. In-Laws have a much better life now that they sold the farm. FIL got 80% of the sale, his brother and sister split the other 20, since they did not work the farm at all and my FIL ran it for 30 years.

I have a small 10 acre orchard, and I tell people all the time , I throw 50 to 60 k in the air every year and hope it comes back with a little profit for my time .

 

[DUNEFLYER]

Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to post all of this.
I am sure some us want to know what model of equipt is this?