The next generation Gleaner

Well victoryallis has some acres LOL. Did I strike a nerve?        How is cash rent fair? Its the walmart of farming. create so much volume that you can live off $5 an acre.    And no im not a communist.      I guarantee I make at least twice the profit per acre as most BTO's out there today. Thats efficiency. Now if I had a 50k yearly loan payment for a new combine and tractor I would need to do 1000 acres Just to pay the loan. That is waist. That helps us in no way.

good thinking ARAS! I would much rather have that money in my pockets for things I WANT to do or buy!

I can't see the logic of 300+ bushel combines.  A full tank of corn would be nearly 17,000 lb. plus the weight of the combine and head.  Even on dry ground the compaction is going to be immense.  Most everybody uses grain carts anyway, you don't really need more capacity in the combine tank.  My cousin in Ohio runs a 6 row header on his big JD just because it's easy to get between fields.

http://www.agweb.com/article/what_gives_a_combine_its_class/

What I hate is people that rent ground from full time farmers, and have a job in town that makes there living and gives them a way to get health care. Then runs there mouth about farmers that farm "a lot" of acres in there opinion.
       IG

I had a job in town before I took over the family farm in "79, I kept the job in town and farmed too. helped me pay off equipment faster and provided us with good health insurance! saved our money, bought some industrial ground around the Cargill area at $80,000. per acre. this is investment property and is paid for. I retired from the job in town last year and still farm the family farm. my health hasn't been the best but is better than most on here and I still get good health insurance thru where I worked in town, and still will until medi-care takes over if it lasts that long! I don't farm a lot of acres, but it makes me money (I have to cash rent it from the others in the family) "you know...the "stockholders" as they prefer to be called! I love the cash rent agreement, it cuts a lot of bullchit out of my life from them! plus I have complete control of the ground, I wouldn't have if it were on shares. I have to buy 6 and 8 row or larger equipment to farm my little farm, as that's the only thing available in this part of the country! when was the last time any of ya'll saw a brand new 4-row planter for sale ona dealer lot? I buy something brand new for the farm every year from the net profits of the farm. all the "big" farmers in my area also have jobs in town....even tho they farm 3000-5000 acres each year. I really could never figure out why, because they have to hire people to help them get over those acres while they are at their "other" jobs during planting and harvesting!

1200 acres is really nothing today. At least around here. I have no problem with big farmers. I do have a problem with government that bails out anybody, big or small or government rules that are now being discussed that will make it so someone farming less than 160 acres can't get in on farm programs or tax advantages. That has been discussed here at the county level and I've been to the meetings to hear it for myself. So far nothing has been done but the largest dairy in MN was there and that's what one of the owners of that dairy was pushing for and he also 160 acres is being generous.  

Daehler wrote: SHAMELESS wrote: when was the last time any of ya'll saw a brand new 4-row planter for sale ona dealer lot? Trying to stay on topic of things, I did see a 4 row on our local Kinze lot. It only cost a little over $40,000. makes a new combine look cheap

And how is a person supposed to ever make that pencil? It would be cheaper to buy a used Deere 7000 strip it to the frame toss everything in the scrap pile but the frame and buy new row unit from Shoup and add the parts on from the Shoup catalog. If a planter is $40,000 what the heck would a new version of an F series cost $200,000 plus? I hate to say it but the little guy is forced to run the BTO hand me downs.

I am relatively a newcomer here I guess, but I think different people here have different ideas of exactly what a BTO is. Most folks don't think of KY when thinking of grain country, but right here in the county I live in, there are at least 12 farmers that I can think of off top of my head that farm about 6000 acres, 7 that farm around 10,000, two that farm over 15,000, and one that is running 38,000. Some of these acres are in other counties, and some are in other states, but home bases are in Christian County.
I started on my own with no help from anyone. My dad didn't farm, and he tried to talk me out of it, but it is what I wanted to do. I farm a little over 1800 acres of corn, wheat and soybeans, and have cut my tobacco acres back to 45, and I do still fool with a couple hundred acres of hay. I have always done some custom planting and harvesting along with some bush hogging on CRP ground.
Most of my acres are cash rented, and I have a few farms that are still on shares, cause that is the way the landlord has always wanted to do them in the 25+ years I have cropped those farms. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Rent here is just as competitive as most any part of the country, 200 to 350 an acre, depending on the type of ground.
Now as far as the "seem to know how everything works" folks would think ( they seem to be everywhere now a days) I just half azz the crop, and sit on the mailbox and wait for Obama to send me a check. Well let me clue those folks in on a fact or two. To draw a check, the big factor is having a "base" on the said farm. It is broken down by individual farms. I crop only two farms that have any kind of base at all. Bases were set many years ago, so if a farm was in pasture back then, or other non base building crops, they have no base. Hence no payment. Not every farmer, large or small, draws a government check. But most everyone thinks they all do. And even if the government does pay a payment, not all are eligible. Take disaster payments, I have never drawn a disaster payment simply because the way they are figured, my tobacco crop made me ineligible.
Now, go back some years, I cropped 6,600 acres in 5 counties for many years. A lot of river bottoms and some really good ground and some marginal. It was 62 miles to the two farms the longest distance from my shop. Made that trip many times some years with a planter cause the rivers would get out after I had planted, so back we went to replant. At the same time I worked 6,600 ac, I had 360 momma cows scattered in 3 counties and grew 130 to 150 acres of tobacco. I had 6 full time employees, and many part time. We worked 7 days a week practically all year. BUT, then as now, not but a very few of those 62 different farms had a base or a government payment.
I have been down the road of the new 200 to 250k new tractors, 350k new combines and then a 70k draper head and 100k 12 row cornhead, and let's not for get the 140k to 180k planters too. I have paid for many of each over the years. But not by farming the government. But I would NOT go back and do all that again. It cost me my first marriage of 18 years, and it cost me my good health.
And a lot of what "i" call the BTO are about one bad crop from broke. Not all of them, but some. But still people will talk about how those folks are millionaires and lucky, etc. Point being, Noone knows another person's business or how stout they are financially, but they sure like to sit around and talk and start the rumors.
My son has worked for me on the farm since he was big enough to turn a steering wheel. I started last year bringing him in on the operation. But we don't run all the new tractors and combines and such anymore, we run equipment that WE can work on. Not the dealer and their laptops. I have had my absolute fill of that crap.
My son and I and one full time employee do it all now, except the tobacco, which we hire part time help with. But I don't miss all the 50k combine payments or the 40k tractor or planter payments. The BTO can have all them they want, and to each his own. It's none of my business what they owe or what they get from government payments. I have enough to worry about keeping my operation going.

Sorry, Ky Allis. I got on a rant there.

I like the way you think poorboy and totally agree with ya. Especially the equipment part. Give me tractors and combines I can work on, not all that electronic crap.

SHAMELESS wrote: I had a job in town before I took over the family farm in "79, I kept the job in town and farmed too. helped me pay off equipment faster and provided us with good health insurance! saved our money, bought some industrial ground around the Cargill area at $80,000. per acre. this is investment property and is paid for. I retired from the job in town last year and still farm the family farm. my health hasn't been the best but is better than most on here and I still get good health insurance thru where I worked in town, and still will until medi-care takes over if it lasts that long! I don't farm a lot of acres, but it makes me money (I have to cash rent it from the others in the family) "you know...the "stockholders" as they prefer to be called! I love the cash rent agreement, it cuts a lot of bullchit out of my life from them! plus I have complete control of the ground, I wouldn't have if it were on shares. I have to buy 6 and 8 row or larger equipment to farm my little farm, as that's the only thing available in this part of the country! when was the last time any of ya'll saw a brand new 4-row planter for sale ona dealer lot? I buy something brand new for the farm every year from the net profits of the farm. all the "big" farmers in my area also have jobs in town....even tho they farm 3000-5000 acres each year. I really could never figure out why, because they have to hire people to help them get over those acres while they are at their "other" jobs during planting and harvesting!

I wasn't meaning you shameless. I would still like you if you called me names......LOL !!!!

GM Guy wrote: On the topic of the new Gleaner, word has it the hydro and transmission controls will be entirely electronic. I personally am not impressed with that at all. Give me a lever and some linkage, and a hydro cable. :) I don't mind the electronic throttle, but IMO propulsion should allways have a direct link to the operator controls.

  I agree! Just additional cost and something could break. Ryan

GM...it'll give the mice something more to chew on! IG...thanks! KY...I agree on "something we can work on ourselves". it's been that way along time here! sometimes buying a 2nd. machine ona sale just for a parts unit! and as for the govt payment I get...I can take the old lady....oooops...I mean the loving wife out for a nice supper with it!