Cost of new hayfield??

[Welshmom]

My neighbor planted a new hayfield next door to me this Spring.
It's about 7 acres, and he put in a mix of alfalfa, OG, and cover peas and oats. He's telling me it cost him over $4,000 to put it in. This seems a little high to me.
What do you all think?
Oh, and this was on crop ground, was in wheat last year.

[FarmboyBill]

Id say it was high, Course, if hes counting his oil, gas, grease, any parts he had to replace to get the crop in, fertilizer, seed, maybe herbicide, it would come closer.

[rambler]

It's not uncommon to put down 3 years worth of fertilizer for a hay field before planting it. Not hard to get close to $100 an acre for that, or over if it was poor CRP ground.

Does your area need lime, with no tillage, again one would put down 5 years worth of lime to keep the field good - lime doesn't work so good not worked in, so it's the time to load up. We don't lime 'here', but if needed, it can be spendy.

Real good quality alfalfa seed can cost $300 a bag, for a pure stand a lot of folk put down 20# an acre; would be less in a mixed stand, but all grass seeds are pretty high priced if you want the top quality seeds.

If he rented a fancy seeder, those go big bucks per acre.

So, while that sounds high, it would not be hard to get there?

--->Paul

[Welshmom]

I know he did put down fertilizer, I don't know exactly what/how much. He worked the ground himself, he has all his own (older) equipment. I don't know if he limed, but it should have tested at close to 6.8 if he'd had it tested. He went over the field 4 times I think, discing, cultimulching, & planting. I've heard a rule of thumb is to figure $10 per acre per trip for fuel, etc.
I was just trying to come up with how he got to that number, if he planted decent alfalfa and Orchardgrass, plus peas and oats. Maybe he did spend a lot on fertilizer.

[springvalley]

Yep, sounds rather high to me also, but I have no idea what he used. I don`t spend anywhere near that much. Depending what you need, you could get by for 100 bucks an acre or so depends what you gotta do. If you have to hire the work done then your talking more money. Good Luck! >Thanks Marc

[js2743]

with the price of fertilize from $500 to close a $1000 a ton depending on what you use, it dont take much to get a high cost into seeding.

[Molly Mckee]

The new roundup ready alfalfa is really expensive too, if he used that seed. Molly

[rambler]

Originally Posted by Molly Mckee

The new roundup ready alfalfa is really expensive too, if he used that seed. Molly

Nope, that's been pulled from the market for the last 2 years, stuck in a court battle. RR alfalfa was only available one year for planting.

It was - and will be if allowed again - very expensive tho, you got that right!

--->Paul

[Callieslamb]

If I could do my 4 acres for that, I do it in a heart beat. But my price includes killing what is already there.....I paid $350 for lime last fall. Fertilizer this year will be $700. Double that, buy your seed.....OUCH.

[GoatsRus]

We have 4 acres we just cleared and are going to put down some fescue mixed with fertilizer. This will be cut for hay for the goats. If we rent the spreader it will cost us around $350 for the seed, fertilizer and rental. The rental was only $15. This was an actual quote from the Co-op.

[wy_white_wolf]

$4000 / 7 acres / 3 years = ~$190 per year per acre

That may sound high but when you calculate everything in with fertilizer for 3 years and realize it's a small field. The cost isn't that high.

[sammyd]

We did 20 acres of alfalfa with an oat nurse crop this year. 1200 for the alfalfa seed (15 pound an acre) I bought bin run oats for 200 (3 bu an acre) but if I would have bought certified seed it could have run to over 400.
We were lucky that the soil was in very good shape and coming off soybeans so we didn't have to add any amendments.
Both our little tractor and the big tractor are gassers and they sucked up quite a pile of gas getting the stuff planted.
Add a few days labor plus some for the neighbor kids to pick rock........

Corn wasn't too bad. We only did 3 acres of that. 180 for the RR corn another 120 or so for urea (150 lb per acre) and spreader rental. Have to get it sprayed yet but that should be less than 100.

[Molly Mckee]

My husband says that is way too high, but the county ag agent can tell you how much it can cost and what is reasonable. Maybe he is factoring in his time, at a lot more than farmers get? Molly