Tractors - Post them.

[WilliamBos]

I love the IH, the 66 series is my all time fav, right next to the MF 1155V8.

Is the Claas 940 a superior chopper?

How many acres do you work, all for feed? And how may cows do you milk?

Combining some corn. 2366 is a little small to cover 1300 acres. Plus its got 2400 seperator hours on it.

The chopper were hoping to trade the deere for

Our Chopper

My Buddies 1468, not ours but it deserves to be on here.

 

[durallymax]

I have watched vids on the Big X 1000 an that thing is a beast 1000hp and a 14 row head you best have alot of chopping to do with that thing. lol

No rush on putting the pages up just when ever you get time.

Do you guys uses forage wagons or just trucks?

An whats your take on the Cat Lexion combines?

Ya there aren't many big x 1000s most are in Kansas, Texas and Cali where there are huge feedlots and dairys that do huge fieLds and lots of them.

A farm an hour away from me did 80,000tons of corn silage which was about 3100 acres. They ran 8 choppers 42 trucks and iirc 14 pack tractors. It was multiple companies if course.

We have one straight truck with a 22' dump box and our 40' apron trailer. We also have two big h&s wide bodies and two smaller wagons. We usually don't run the trucks in hay as they are too hard on the fields. And the trucks are also useless in corn silage if it rains too much.

Trucks aren't worth it if all of the land is close. All of our hay and forage ground I within 3 miles for the most part.

Down the road we may set up trucks with floaters and such but who knows. Personally once I'm done with school id like to purchase the forage equipment and add a custom forage division to the farm.

Cat combines are nice, were looking at buying one of them or a newer case. But personally I don't know a damn thing about a combine and don't really care too. I've only spent about 10 hours in ours my entire life. Combining is slow and boring. Chopping corn never get old because it's all high paced and go go go. Plus you get to beat the snot out of the chopper an see what it's really made of.

 

[durallymax]

like i said iv never run one but some of the ones they are making here are bigger that the cases and the John Deeres that i have seen round here. im sure they make bigger ones as well but i dont see them rolling out of the assembly plant):h i would guess the tracked ones work pretty good in wet conditions and i think i remember them saying that they have less impact on the soil but that dont make much sence to me cuz it all get disced up any way.

Don't know about Deere but case has the new 9120 which is just a little bigger than the biggest cat. I got to see it in it's prototype stage a few years ago.

Tracks work good in mud and do redue compaction.

Compaction is a huge issue with soil and no it does not all get disced up. Actually not much soil gets worked anymore. Most is no tilled or strip tilled.

The bad thing about compaction I that once it's there you can't get rid of it. Yes you can use some of the modern compaction fighting tillage tools but they only so so much.

What compaction does is create a hard packed layer in the subsoil once the plants root hit that layer they stop which means they can't go any deeper for water and nutrients.

Hayfields a great for resisting compaction as thy have tap roots that can grow as deep as 40' in their lifetime.

Drive past any feild that isn't corn and you will be able to see were the equipment drove due to the compaction in the soil.

What tracks and floater tires do is spread the weight out more. If you have 50,000lbs spread out over 1200 square inches versus 200 it helps reduce compaction immensly. And even though there is less psi for ground pressure the added footprint still gives better traction.

 

[durallymax]

I love the IH, the 66 series is my all time fav, right next to the MF 1155V8.

Is the Claas 940 a superior chopper?

How many acres do you work, all for feed? And how may cows do you milk?

Ya the 68 series were pretty worthless but they looked cool.

I wouldn't call the 940 the end to all but it's a very good chopper that meets our needs. The other chopper I think Would fit us is eiter a 500 krone big x or a 650 krone big x but due to the fact tht we ant get good service or parts, the claas is the netter option for us. The 940 claas is much better than our Deere. It has 10hp less and with an 8 row head it walked circles around our Deere with a 6 row head and 10ore hp.

We run about 1,000 acres and all but 150 is for feed the other 150 is sweet corn, peas an extra corn ground that goes into the feed bank at the local mill. We raise the vegatables so that we have somewhere to haul manure in the summer. Our first field of peas is harvested in June an the second In July. Our first field of sweet corn is harested I'm august and te second in September. All we have to do is work the ground and plant the stuff. The canning company takes care if the rest. I ran a pea stripper combine for them two summers ago. It will make the biggist combine look small. They are 13' tall 12' wide and 40' long. Have 450hp and take. 12' swath of peas at a whopping 1mph. It may sound boring but there's about 50 gauges and indicators to watch. Plus they always break sown so there's plenty if fixing to do. I ran with four other combines in the same field one after another so things didn't go by a slow as it may seem. A new pea stripper costs 600,000.

Our forage equipment covers 1100 acres of hay between all of the farms and about 800 acres of corn silage. The combine covers about 1800 acres annually of wheat soybeans and corn.

 

[Brandon C.]

alright now all of those questions are out of the way how much of a challenge do you think it will be to find a farm for sale around here or a good portion of land for sale to start out this is the only thing worring me an what makes me want to stay with auto an diesel mechanics.

 

[durallymax]

well if you want to be a grain farmer im not the guy to ask.

I know it takes 1,000 acres to support one person, or so im told. You can make less work, but 1,000 is comfortable. And really when it comes down to brass tacks, 1,000 acres isnt a lot of work, but it is a lot to purchase/rent.

You dont need to own all of the land, i dont know of any farmers that own all of their land. The 2,000 cow farm down the road runs 3,000 acres but owns about 700 of them.

If you want to get into dairy farming but your dad or close relative doesnt already have a dairy farm, good luck. Im not saying it cant be done, but if you ask many dairy farmers, accountants, and economists they will tell you that you cant start dairy farming just out of the blue. The problem with dairy farming is that its very capital oriented. Meaning you have to have a lot of "stuff". If you want to be a grain farmer you have a tractor or two, some tillage equipment, a combine and a shed. If your a dairy farmer youve gotta 100 times more than that and its not like the milk price is that good. Currently milk is at about $13.50/cwt. We're getting around $19cwt i believe but we milk jerseys so they produce less milk but its worth more money because of the solids, since 98% of milk gets made into cheese.

So as you can see, if you didnt already know, with farming you are always in big debt. I guess i should put it a different way, successful farms are always in big debt. But i suppose that too could differ on a persons ow personal opinion. However my point is that having money laying around is not a good thing, because you have to pay taxes on that money. This next part may not make any sense to a lot of people, but economically a successful farm runs at 30% profit, 70% debt. Actually you can go a touch lower too but most stay around 40% profit and 60% debt. Im still getting my mind around how that works but it does make sense. You can see why many farms expand constantly, because in order to stay in debt you have to keep buying things. But you cant just buy new tractors every year, they have to be smart things that make money directly or inderectly. I know some farmers who tried running their farms debt free, and many either went out of business or gave up on the idea. The main reason, taxes kill when you have no debt and millions of dollars worth of assets.

Make no mistake though, i do know many smaller farms that run debt free and stay the same size and are successful but they usually do specialized things for niche markets. Joe the farmer and his 50 cows typically arent going to support a family of four. Unless he farms with old super H internationals and milks his cows by hand.

Another thing to note too. If you want to get into any sort of farming short of a hobby farm with two cows, you need to learn about marketing. If you want to be a grain farmer learn grain marketing. If you want to be a beef farmer learn beef and grain marketing, if you want to be a dairy farmer, learn milk, grain and possibly beef.

If the terms Hedging, Puts, Calls, Short Hedge, Long Hedge, Futures, Options, Basis and contracts, sound like french to you, you need to take a marketing class.

Yes you can run a farm and just sell for cash, but they reason any farm gets really big, is by "Hedging The Market". By doing this you are taking big risks, but with big rewards if things go right, or a chapter 11 bankruptcy form on your counter. Its completely up to the farmer himself to decide how big of risk he wants to take.

Now all of this is probably scaring you away from farming. Its scary for me too and i know how it works, but im beginning to get the hang of it all. I dont like owing money. I hated owning $10,000 on my truck and to go into farming and owe millions is a task im not up for yet.

But make no mistake, anybody can be a farmer its just a lot of work. I know of many people who just started farms out of the blue. The farm i helped chop with was started by a couple who got married at 18 and had three kids right away and no they are very successful with a 900 cow farm, and their custom harvesting business, they were named National Outstanding Young Farmer of the year awhile back, which is actually how we know them, they are very good friends with my parents who were also named Narional outstanding young farmer of the year back in 98 i believe. Another farmer who was nominated for the national young farmer had no farm background and now milks about 1,500 cows. However he was an accountant before and knows all things money. he runs his debt-profit margin extrememly tight. Theres also a local kid whos now 25 and started his own jersey dairy out of the blue with 20 cows, hes now up to about 60 cows and doing alright for himself.

The bottom line is yes you can start a farm out of the blue, if you have a good banker and dont mind working from 6am-9pm everyday for the first few years.

Since theres only an elite few people who can accomplish this task, there are other options.

The best thing you can do is to get a job with a small local farmer whos getting older with children who aren't interested in the farm. Explain that you really want to learn a lot about farming and put in a lot of time and effort at his farm. Down the road if he would like to, you can work on a transition where things slowly transition into your hands until you are the owner. This way you dont have to go to the local bank and ask for a $2,000,000 loan.

I dont know what land goes for in your area but around here land is very expensive because it is some of the best in the state and in high demand.

 

[Brandon C.]

well let me say that i dont want anything to do with dairy farming at all. I would like to have beefers though like 150-400 or so an the rest grain so I am thinking like you said just to lease most of the land id like to have 1000acres of corn or more that would be my dream will i ever see that im not sure around here but im gonna try my hardest im really into it an work my butt of on my buddys farm an another farm all summer.

 

[durallymax]

Its not hard to aquire 1,000 acres, just takes time.

If you put your mind to it you can do it.

 

[Brandon C.]

ya me an my friend knows a farmer that drives his combine 50miles to jersey to combine corn so there must be money to be made.. lol

I cant say thanks enough will all the info you guys are giving me. thanks a million.

Now lets start talking equipment what kind of planter would you aim for a 12,16, or maybe 24 row? How about tractors whats the max Horsepower you would go an so on. I just want to here what you all prefer/run.

 

[durallymax]

Well that all depends. Typically there is what we call the ten day window in the spring to get all of your corn planted. Its from the time the ground is ready till the first big rain.

lets say you run 1,000 acres of just corn. a 12 row planter would work just fine if you run longer days. Typically a 12 row will do about 15 acres per hour but this all depends on the operator. Assuming 15 acres/hour it woulod take roughly 66 hours of nonstop planting which gives you plenty of time within that ten day window to perform tillage planting and allow for breakdowns assuming 16 hour days.

We still run a Kinze 3200 econofold. Its a cheaper 12 row planter, but is of very good quality. In the next couple of years we will be going to a 16 row 3600 planter.

it only takes about 100hp max to run one.

If you want interplant though for doing beans and such you will need to spend a lot more money.

For tillage a decent size magnum 200hp+ will get the job done.

We prefer Fendt actually but they are out of most peoples price range. The best thing about a new Fendt is that service and repairs are free for 3 years/3,000 miles. Not to mention the fuel savings but the upfront cost kills.

 

[Brandon C.]

It might seem a little big but how about a steiger 335? the smallest of the bunch!

have you guys tested one of thoses 3600 planters an what kind of tillage do you use?

 

[durallymax]

Row crop tractors are more versatile. If you want that much power get a 335 magnum. Or you could save some money and get a 305 or 275 and add injectors or a chip to them.

Our MX240 magnum was stock at 204hp till we put the injectors in. Now its over 300hp which even 335 magnums dont dyno.

Weve never used a 3600 ourselves but a lot of people around here have them. Kinze planters are very very nice. The White planters actually have a little better seed placement IIRC, but the Kinze is best overall package for us.

We have a

9 shank Krause 2889 soil saver
22' Great Plains Turbotill 2200
25' Brillion Mulcher
25' Brillion Packer
5 Shank Blu Jet III Sub Soiler
And we just bought a 32' Wil-Rich Quad 5 Field Cultivator We had a 28' older style The Quad 5 has the leveling wheels and such and works much nicer

We do all different forms of tillage practices just depends on the field and what the landscape is like and what crops were there/ whats going in there.

Hay fields get the most prep.

In the fall the field gets sub soiled in compacted areas
In the spring the soil saver runs across it, then the field cultivator then the turbo till and finally the mulcher. Then we seed the alfalfa.

For a lot of our other ground we do use minimum tillage which usually consists of just scratching the ground with the field cultivator or running the turbo till across it.

We have a John Deere 1560 No Till drill and a Brillion 12' cultipacker seeder for planting as well.

 

[Brandon C.]

as you can see i want to have mostly cash crops (corn & hay) an also id go as many acres as I could wouldnt stop at 1000. So id like to have as high production equipment as possible an ive been looking at tracked equipment due to the muddy conditions around here like this year for one was nice an wet in the fields.

is that all you plant is alfalfa or no? also what kind of discbine do you use?

 

[NAR]

Its not hard to aquire 1,000 acres, just takes time.

If you put your mind to it you can do it.

Depending on where you are, lots and lots of time. Hard to bid against the big guys all the time. And once you get it you can't depend on it staying yours. Also depending where you are, 1000 acres is a lot of work. Here we have to irrigate everything all year, no rain most of the summer. So it takes a couple guys generally to keep all the irrigation going while still spraying and things like that.

We've been up over 1500, then lost almost all the rented ground to out of state rich guys that bought it and in most cases did jack shit with it. I can count 20 places that we used to farm that have houses, hay and horses on them. I hate realtors so much...

Currently if I wasn't doing a ton of custom work I'd be screwed. As it was this year was still a disaster with hail on everything. That's the other thing lots of guys never think about, not every year is a good yield year. You get shit weather more often than you like at the wrong times...

 

[durallymax]

Depending on where you are, lots and lots of time. Hard to bid against the big guys all the time. And once you get it you can't depend on it staying yours. Also depending where you are, 1000 acres is a lot of work. Here we have to irrigate everything all year, no rain most of the summer. So it takes a couple guys generally to keep all the irrigation going while still spraying and things like that.

We've been up over 1500, then lost almost all the rented ground to out of state rich guys that bought it and in most cases did jack shit with it. I can count 20 places that we used to farm that have houses, hay and horses on them. I hate realtors so much...

Currently if I wasn't doing a ton of custom work I'd be screwed. As it was this year was still a disaster with hail on everything. That's the other thing lots of guys never think about, not every year is a good yield year. You get shit weather more often than you like at the wrong times...

Where I'm at its impossible to get land. Because everybody and their brother wants it.

Wisconsin has a new thing they are trying to get going that farmers pay into, and then the land they farm is gaurunteed to stay farmland.

Theres always bad years, thats why many opt for crop insurance if crops are the main source of income. Overtime crop insurance is a loss of money, but it will save you that one year hail wipes your crops out like it did this year in northwestern illinois.

 

[durallymax]

as you can see i want to have mostly cash crops (corn & hay) an also id go as many acres as I could wouldnt stop at 1000. So id like to have as high production equipment as possible an ive been looking at tracked equipment due to the muddy conditions around here like this year for one was nice an wet in the fields.

is that all you plant is alfalfa or no? also what kind of discbine do you use?

Dont get track equipment just to drive through mud.

If you want to prevent compaction, you can go driving through the field when its above field moisture capacity. Driving over wet and muddy soils causes big time compaction.

But if you have to get the crop off, it can be the only option.

Between our farm and my uncles farm we run a total of about 1800 acres. our biggest tractors are our magnums. No articulated. Dont need one.

Like I said the row crop tractor is the most universal tractor out there, articulated tractors are only good for a couple of things and thats pulling big tillage equipment in big open fields, or pushing up a lot of silage at once.

We plant corn, alfalfa, a little bit of soybeans, peas, and sweet corn. We also do some grass mixes over the winter and such.

For discbines we have a Pottinger V10 Novacat Tri-Mower setup with conditioning rolls mounted on our 8940 Magnum, it cuts 32' at 15mph. Our other discbine that we use for opening fields up is a new holland HW365 with an 18' discbine head.

 

[Brandon C.]

Ok i will take that into account about the tractors.

another question what kind of seed do you use for your corn? we used liberty an some roundup ready last year an this year i think were going to do half liberty an the other half pioneer, An see what turns out better my vote is on the pioneer if the conditions are right.

I see you plant sweet corn do you have a roadside stand or just take it to the markets an sell it?

i was also thinking a self propelled discbine like a larger caseih wd2303

 

[durallymax]

We use mostly all pioneer hybrids for corn

The sweet corn we dont deal with, we just plant it the canning factory does the rest

our disbine is the same as the largest case.

 

[Brandon C.]

Whats you average yeild with pioneer hybrids?

the farm i work at plants sweet corn but sells it out right in stores an at the stand.

Thoses caseih discbines are sweet got too sit in a few an drive one at a buddys farm in NY.

 

[durallymax]

This year i think 190 was our average. Not one of the best years. weve had 200 bushel years.

The case discbine is nothing compared to our new one. I can cut three times as much hay with the new one in an hour than with the older one.

Attached is the forage harvester technology paper i did.