If you are not a farmer and have been stuck behind one at 20 MPH, you probably will miss my point. "Don't complain about farmers with your mouth full."
Crops are disappearing field by field. It feels really good to see the crop come and it is coming in fast.
I was surprised to hear Darren Hefty tell me they were finishing up in South Dakota. We just got a good start but it is amazing what these very expensive modern combines can do.
$400,000 will get you several acres per hour but you have to have somewhere to put it. It takes at least one tractor and big grain cart to unload one of these amazing combines and a few semi trucks and trailers to haul that away. A person could be using up to a million dollars worth of equipment to get that job done. Five good operators are needed and of course they need support.
Most of my friends do it on a third to half that amount but you get the picture. Farming today takes a bank roll(loan) to operate and its not for everybody.
A lot of crop is still in the field around here but it is pleasing to see harvest take an amazing leap in just a few days.
I wish I had time to visit the Stahl's southwest of me. When they get rolling, its all hands on deck. This favorite video of mine represents what they were doing today, no doubt. Multiply my numbers by five or more and you have an idea of how serious they are about farming.
To every season, there is a season to plant and a season to reap.
These very expensive, over or under rated combines can really reap!
Ed Winkle
Ed amazes me how fast a crop can come off as last Wednesday night when shipping hogs there was quite a few combines sitting in fields and had went maybe 400' and soys were still testing 17%+ at supper time,l;ast Thursday turned sunny finally and when shipping hogs to-night I think soy harvest has went from 10% complete to 90% . Another surprising thing is the number of new or very late model combines/grain buggies. yrs. ago you never seen one. FWIW on some higher yielding IP food grade soybeans contracts they are grossing $960 acre ,on some RR soys with below average yields soys are grossing $375 acre. kevin in Ontario
ReplyDeleteThanks for the report, Kevin. I don't think we are over 50% yet but the boys are hammering away every chance they get. Bins are a lot fuller than they were a week ago for sure.
ReplyDeleteThat's a huge difference on gross income, will we flood the market?
Ed