WTB

Luke...tells me about this!

thanks les...this helps me!

thanks 99! I do have a small propane weed burner...and they do work!

Shameless if you have any questions you can call me. 641-660-four one five zero

SHAMELESS wrote: yep...that's what I wanna plant...and if it works o-k...i'll do another 75-56 acres! OrangeBorn...that's the kind I was looking for! where is it going? is it for sale? I am to old to weed them by hand, will mow between the rows, also will buy/rent a harvester! and where do ya'll sell your berries? I have a list of several that want them. but won't name a price yet! what have ya been gittin for them?

thanks more!

I'm not familiar with how they go to market and who buys them Shameless. All I really know is that all the growers that send the berries to them get processed there. They have a processing line that blows off the leaves, pulls the stems, disinfects them, and packages them in 30 lbs boxes. They then go to Omaha into a cold storage facility. They send you a check when he sells them. All of the growers are supposed to get paid the same. Maybe it takes that long to sell all of them? Maybe it takes a while to get the price he's looking for? I really don't know. The check for the 2013 crop arrived in about June 2014. the 2013 crop brought $2.47, but he kept 40 cents for processing, storage and sales commission, making my payout $2.07. If you have 800 mature bushes putting out 30 lbs per bush, that's a $49,680 before tax payout @ $2.07. But it takes a while to get them there. Compare that to $240 you'd make from hay from the same space. My 800 bushes has so far only produced 589 lbs at 3 years old, and the 4th year got hit with a late frost but still managed a 750 lb harvest. My buddy has 1600 bushes the same age and had frost one year and hail the next, and he hasn't had a single crop yet. Luke is a little shy at giving out any info, but if he has 5000 bushes 6 foot tall, and he's taking care of them the way I think he is, he might be doing 20 lbs per bush maybe. Even if he's only getting 15 lbs per bush and he's paying 40 cents per pound for picking, he's still making $125,250 a year. Well worth it if you ask me, no matter how hard he works at it.

With only 800 bushes, I never planned for it to be a full time job. I don't spend near the time on them Luke does. I was just looking at it to hopefully be a little retirement income. Besides, I wasn't using the space for anything else. It was just space I had to mow anyway. If they flower, and a late frost hits them and they produce nothing, I really don't care. I'm not dependent on the income.


Edited by Les Royer - 01 Apr 2015 at 7:23am

It all looks good on paper. If I made what les is saying I would quit my full time job!!!! Crop insurance is now finally becoming available. Frost will screw you. And if you have a lot of deer in ur area I recommend not planting them unless you put in an 8' tall fence otherwise ur pissing in the wind like I have been doing. Les is delving out info I would not have posted on the forum. It's taken 6 years to learn what I know now. Lots of foot work and paperwork and BS. He also doesn't mention trucking or some of the other hidden costs. Just my two sense worth.

SHAMELESS wrote: also wonder what the dif is for organic or not in price? USDA says I don't hafta have a cert with just 1 acre? anyone know anything about that? Les...you organic too?

Yep. To be "organic", even if your growing space is 14' x 14', you must have a certificate.
"Certified Naturally Grown" is another program that is basically the same, but costs a whole lot less.
https://www.naturallygrown.org/

well...there really would hafta be a clause in there about payment after delivery...that's what they make banks for! kinda like grain elevators payments! we would have expenses too! when searching the web...I do find quite a few growers out there and a few close to us too Les. Luke...you ever have trouble getting payment?

I've wondered about him myself Luke. All the talk before I got involved was about them bringing $4 a pound. Then when I deliver, the price is 2 bucks? Another thing I've discovered is that they spend all their time traveling the country promoting their retail products, not the sale of the berry itself. I think he's not selling the berries to anybody. I think he's using them all for himself for his retail products and naturally, he's not going to want to pay us growers any more than he has to. I can't prove any of this, it's just my speculation. I never signed a contract with him as I slipped through the cracks, but I haven't researched where else to take them.