18 Row Corn Picker

[uncle Will in In.]

My renter had a 24 row corn planter that planted 30 inch rows. Last spring, he came out with a 36 row corn planter that plants 20 inch rows. Both planters were 60 feet wide, but he now has an 18 row picker head instead of the 12 row he used with the 24 row planter.
When I was farming the same ground, I only had a one row pull type picker. The equipment sitting out here this morning cost close to a million dollars. If I had a million dollars, I'd just farm until it was all gone. One trip to the tractor dealer would be all it would take.

[Callieslamb]

unbelieveable isn't it. I see farmers (even smaller ones) with 6 or 7 tractors sitting around their place. I can't imagine even owning that much.

[RonM]

The guys I help have a 24 row planter and a 24 row douyble row planter the sold for 205 each and 2 -12 row CIH combines that went for 565 each, the combines now have 40 ft grains heads on them for soybeans , these guys till over 6000 acres.spread out over 25 miles.....takes a lot of money to farm nowadays...

[switchman62]

I know when I was growing up, you would see lights on and tractors going half the night during harvest. Anymore I will see tractors and combines sitting out in the field idle at 6pm.

[Waiting Falcon]

My late husband said the cost of agriculture went up with the advent of the the multirow corn pickers. He was from Iowa and had used the smaller 1-3 row corn picker so knew how long it took to do what size of field. He broke down the cost of the old small pickers versus the BIG machines and it was not a pretty picture. Bigger is not better nor cheaper.
I have a very old 2 row cultivator (I think) that is horse drawn. It is a solid piece maybe 100 years old. It has been kept oiled so moves freely. How many of todays machines are still going to be around in 100 years. I am guessing they will be rusted to nothing.

However without this new technology could the world be fed, can you raise today enough food to support yourself and all of your animals. Do you not have to depend on store bought feed/food? The thing is , not every one has the type of soil, correct lay of land to raise grain/hay. So as our country has grown, desires have grown , we want more than we can raise food for. We live in a commercial world.

[texican]

I think the rule about farming now is Go Big or Go Home. At least growing commodities...

[HermitJohn]

Originally Posted by texican

I think the rule about farming now is Go Big or Go Home. At least growing commodities...

The trouble with this theory is that GO BIG requires cheap petroleum and ever more expensive machines. Expensive petroleum (you aint seen nothing yet) means commodities at higher inflation adjusted prices than in the old days of small farms. It was a nice ride while it lasted, but the bubble will burst. And the rabble will start occupying Wall Street..... Those in power will just say "If there is no bread, then let them eat cake...."

[HermitJohn]

Originally Posted by Waiting Falcon

We live in a commercial world.

Also we now have 7 BILLION humans wanting MORE. In 1960 talking more like 3 BILLION. Yes doubling of population on a planet that isnt doubling in size, means everybody gets less. Well the poor get less, the zillionaires always get MORE. But the sad truth, despite social conservative hype, is that very few people get to be zillionaires. Most are going to be relatively poor with no manna from heaven and have to deal with shortage of resources. Post WWII era of living off the fat of the land and better living through chemistry is coming to an end and most will have harsh reality of shortages of resources once again imposed.

[texican]

Originally Posted by HermitJohn

Also we now have 7 BILLION humans wanting MORE. In 1960 talking more like 3 BILLION. Yes doubling of population on a planet that isnt doubling in size, means everybody gets less. Well the poor get less, the zillionaires always get MORE. But the sad truth, despite social conservative hype, is that very few people get to be zillionaires. Most are going to be relatively poor with no manna from heaven and have to deal with shortage of resources. Post WWII era of living off the fat of the land and better living through chemistry is coming to an end and most will have harsh reality of shortages of resources once again imposed.

With less and less farmers... if they went small, most of those 7B would starve... thus, go big.

If oil disappears, doesn't matter, most of the 7B are compost.

[uncle Will in In.]

A farm paper I get had an article in it yesterday about farm changes. It said the state of Indiana produces 5 times more corn now than it did in the 1930s. They do it on 20 percent less acres. I know the small farmers of old worked harder to care for their farms than now. They lived a family style life that most of us here would approve of. The farmers today farm over a thousand acres for each person working in his company.
Very few of them own more than a small percentage of the ground they are farming, Around here they are mostly a family run opperation. More and more we will be seeing large stockholder owned companys
taking over and running these opperations.
Bad to worse is putting our country down with the rest of the the countries that have paupers and billion aires with very few in between.

[Lazy J]

Go big or go home, but that is tough for those of us trying to get our start in crop farming.

I have land owners that say on hand "There are not enough young farmers" then on the other hand they rent their ground to the farmers that cover 5,000 acres rather than someone trying to get started.

The large equipment is impressive to watch, that is for sure. I am glad I don't have those payments though.

[PD-Riverman]

My Grandfather farmed all his life, long hard hours--over 40 years, one row at the time. He refused to get bigger equipment. When he died my Grandmother sold all his farm equipment, 2 tractors and all at a fair market price and she got less than $15,000 for everything.

A friend of mine started farming one row at a time when he was 18. When he was 20 he had already stepped up to 4 row farming, in his early 20's he had the biggest tractor, biggest equipment, biggest combine in his area. He told me that he could farm 10 or more times as much as he could when he was a one row farmer in less time and I seen him setting out at the local Store all the time gossiping except for his planting/harvesting times. At 38 he decided to stop farming and auction off all his farm equipment. I went to his sale early and chatted with him. He had one big tractor and a few smaller tractors one BIG combine he had used for several years, some nice equipment for a One man(meaning he was the one that operated the big equipment when it was in use) farmer in my area. He told me everything was payed for and he has always tried to save up the money to buy any new piece of equipment he has bought in his 20 years of farming. I talked with him a few days after the sale and ask him how it came out. He said after all the Auctioneers fee's and expences he came out with 1.2 million in his pocket. I asked him what he was going to do now---he said RETIRE and hang around the house.

I am no farmer but sounds like if you are going to farm and make some decent money You Got To Get the Big equipment.

Oh This friend got tired of setting around the house(being retired) He went out and bought a BIG tractor and equipment, Big combine, a 18 wheeler truck to haul his grain and rented all the land he could work and bought or rented some grain silo's and become a grain farmer--corn, soybeans etc. He told me he was to young to be retired.

[chester5731]

Originally Posted by texican

With less and less farmers... if they went small, most of those 7B would starve... thus, go big.

If oil disappears, doesn't matter, most of the 7B are compost.

The same amount could be produced with more smaller farmers. The problem is today most people are too lazy to be farm for a living.

[rambler]

Originally Posted by chester5731

The same amount could be produced with more smaller farmers. The problem is today most people are too lazy to be farm for a living.

China is disproving your theory.

Their small 5 acre farmers are not as productive as the big operations of Brazil, Canada, USA, Argentina, etc.

As a small sized farm farmer myself, there are ecconomies of scale that hurt the tiny small farms. As you may point out, there is waste from too big a size as well, which some of the big operations prove year after year.

In the corn/soybean heartland midwest, it seems a family operation with about 500-1000 acres per family member is the right size to gain ecconomy of scale, yet be small enough for each person to care about & for the acres and efficiency. This could put a farm at 7000 acres, if there is 3 borthers with 3-4 kids running it, spouses or others helping along at busy times. And still be a 'small' family farm that gets in on ecconomies of scale, but is not so big as to be wasteful.

Out West a bigger operation makes more sense, and out east or for a vegtable farm of course a smaller acrage hits that balance better. There are many successful 10 acre truck farms.

Depends what type of farm we are talking about. And, I don't want to say their is a perfect size, and all farms must be that size... Whatever works for you, or me, or the next guy is fine.

But if we are talking about grain farmer that raises livestock feed for USA and export needs, smaller will not ever be able to raise more for less. The ecconomies of scale have moved that up to where you need at least an 8 row planter & 4 row combine on the bottom edge, more likely moving to a 6 or 8 row combine. And grouping up into a bigger family operation with a bit bigger machinery and more land will produce more. (Note that I am below this bottom edge in size, so I'm not following my own advise but I understand I'm also not the most efficient, I don't raise more for less.....)

I'm surprised they went to 20 inch rows, around here twin row planters are catching on big. Plant 2 rows 7 inches apart, but they are centered on 30 inch spacing. This allows you to continue using the 30 inch corn head, and combine the twin 7 inch rows as one row - they will bend into a 30 inch cornhead fine. You get the benifit of spacing the plants farther apart, but don't need to buy new harvest equipment. That's efficient.

--->Paul

[chester5731]

Rambler, I guess my point is not that the smaller farms would be as efficient but they would still be able to produce the same quantities. Imagine if there were more farms at say 400 acres and less at 1500 or 2000 as there is around here. That would make for a few more employed people.

[farminghandyman]

even if you take the machine cost per hour, and figure out how much that machine will do in that hour, and figure out how many farm hands it would take to do the same thing, (say picking corn by hand as it was done around her Pre 1940's and figure out what it would cost to hire the number of people it would take, to pick that same amount of corn, the combine looks fairly cheap, and that is not counting the horses or the wagons that would be needed to accompany the pickers,

even take the difference between 1970's and today, most of the farmers that were larger had two or three some times 4 or 5 combines, and a good number of trucks, and would take a dozen people to operate the equipment,

now it is one combine, a grain cart and semi, and only 3 people are operating it all. and some times 2 people are doing it.

[Ken Scharabok]

BIG farms live off of the depreciation on their equipment.

What Marie Antonette said is misused. At the end of a royal banquet it was the practice to give out any left over bread to the needy so it didn't go to waste. After one such function he was told they were out of bread. Soooo.

The French farmers were hungury since they distained the potato in favor of grains.

Farmers who rely on relative labor at planting and harvesting are starting to hurt as the family size had decreased.

[digApony]

Originally Posted by chester5731

The same amount could be produced with more smaller farmers. The problem is today most people are too lazy to be farm for a living.

Hitler was big on stifling the family farm-aka self-sufficiency and I hope I don't have to explain why.

In the U.S. the loss of the Family Farm; through taxes, bogus loans; and as a result of the overwhelming power of the huge corporate farms plays a large factor in the growing numbers in wealth; and increasing the number of poor and middle class who now depend on the super farms to feed them.

People are not lazy. It just isn't our culture in this time; as a member said above; we are commercialized.

No. Big is only better for those who are big. No thanks. They can have their big machines and thousands of acres. I'll eat tomatoes, corn on the cob and live just fine without the cake.

digApony

[Paquebot]

Originally Posted by chester5731

Rambler, I guess my point is not that the smaller farms would be as efficient but they would still be able to produce the same quantities. Imagine if there were more farms at say 400 acres and less at 1500 or 2000 as there is around here. That would make for a few more employed people.

400-acre farms around here don't employ anybody but the farmer himself. A friend has a lot more than that and his only help is his wife. It's the 1500 or 2000 ones that can afford to hire full-time help. They are also the farms which can afford to buy the equipment to plant and harvest efficiently. Often I am amazed at seeing one single attachment with more equipment than we had on our entire farm. That amazement lasts only until I see one even bigger!

The newer planting and harvesting equipment allows the farmer to get the maximum yield per acre at minimum costs. Farmer showed me some figures from his corn harvest a week ago. He knew the precise number of kernels planted per field and the planter was calibrated to plant so many per acre according to soil tests. Lowest total was 33,000 while highest was 35,500 and drilling single kernels at a precise distant apart. Yield varied from 205 to 238 bushels per acre. He figures that he may have lost up to 10% in some fields due to the dry summer as well as to cannibalization. In 1950, we probably got 25 bushels per acre with Golden Glow on stalks so short that one had to bend over to pick them. It was picked by hand with a team of horses and a bangboard wagon. Nobody wants to return to that.

Martin

[digApony]

Originally Posted by Paquebot

400-acre farms around here don't employ anybody but the farmer himself. A friend has a lot more than that and his only help is his wife. It's the 1500 or 2000 ones that can afford to hire full-time help. They are also the farms which can afford to buy the equipment to plant and harvest efficiently. Often I am amazed at seeing one single attachment with more equipment than we had on our entire farm. That amazement lasts only until I see one even bigger!

The newer planting and harvesting equipment allows the farmer to get the maximum yield per acre at minimum costs. Farmer showed me some figures from his corn harvest a week ago. He knew the precise number of kernels planted per field and the planter was calibrated to plant so many per acre according to soil tests. Lowest total was 33,000 while highest was 35,500 and drilling single kernels at a precise distant apart. Yield varied from 205 to 238 bushels per acre. He figures that he may have lost up to 10% in some fields due to the dry summer as well as to cannibalization. In 1950, we probably got 25 bushels per acre with Golden Glow on stalks so short that one had to bend over to pick them. It was picked by hand with a team of horses and a bangboard wagon. Nobody wants to return to that.

Martin

No, we don't want to return to that, we cannot. However, Wal Mart, Kroger and other grocery chains should purchase produce from the family farms as well. And the Federal government should allow family farms to do so. Family Farms can form Co-ops and sell even bigger.

And I somewhat agree with your assessment, but I wonder why when I look at just about every label on produce it says a product of Mexico? We sell ours overseas maybe to get more money on those hundreds of bushels? Why compete with Mexico?

Also, I'll bet he writes off every little bit of that 10% loss and massive amounts of cannibalization.

digApony