Whats the best use of this land IYO?

I'd find some like minded folks who want to grow their own food and either don't have the land or don't know how-and start some sort of community garden of sorts. Sorta like this: http://localfood.cabarruscounty.us/L...cubator%20Farm

Or, I'd do what you said and grow grain, maybe field peas or barley or buckwheat or oats or something that someone like me would buy; non-GMO protein rich quality grain so I can mix my own feed without worrying about poisoning my animals. I can get big bags of stuff around here but it's all RR and I want no part of that. And the guy with a really big feed mill is always looking for land to rent for obvious reasons.

Makes me wish I had more land ....

U got to have the
knowledge
experience, machinery, MONEY

A farmer and a businessman both won the Lottery. When asked what he'd do, the businessman said, he'd quit his job, buy a new house, a sports car and travel the workd. The farmer answered simply, " I guess I'll just keep farming until its gone."

I want to tread lightly, I know we have a different view of life and that is great, it makes the world a rich and interesting place.

There is no GMO:

field peas
barley
buckwheat
or oats

So if you buy those grains PP, they will be non-GMO from any source?

If you buy a mixed/ ground bag that incluudes field corn, soybean meal or beet molasass, then it could likely contain some GMOs from those 3 crops.

But a straight up bag of any of the things you list, won't be GMO from the feed mills either.

Growing organic or 'natural' products can be a good nitche market if you have demand for those things around you, it takes more marketing and many times the bigger gross profit one gets is eaten up by transportation/ packaging costs and more expensive fertilizers to keep your soil healthy.

Research the oppertunities for sales near you.

--->Paul

I've got enough knowledge, machinery and experience to cut hay. I do it a little for myself. This would be more of a business venture. The field he has is a good hay field, I've been looking at it every day for 2 years. I'm sure I could get a lot of hay, but somehow a feeling that there might be a more profitable use for a good level field with good sandy loam soil....

Eh...the rise in the price of grain is not all inflation. There are games being played with the speculators and we all know that prices go up because of weather and they never will go back down again.

Not sure why my post gets your gander up. I mention 'big ag' and by your own admission that is your competition. Monsanto does a lot of crappy things, we all know that.

My post was an invitation for those with experience to help me come up with ideas that might be helpful, most have done that and I am grateful. A few have used the opportunity to vent their own frustrations and failures with the farm business. The grain idea was one idea, I mentioned A FEW in my opening post. Not sure why a couple of you needed to harp on that, I guess it was an opportunity for you to put someone down. One particularly negative poster actually implied that it is impossible to make money with land! That poor unhappy person failed for 50 years to make any profit whatsoever and I guess is trying to help by warning me away from any type of farming endeavor. The fact is I have made a modest profit from my land for the past 3 years..so I know it is possible, not even really too difficult.

What I am really looking for is a unique idea that might put me ahead of the curve. Most everyone around here raises cattle, cuts hay and timber. Yes I could probably do that same and squeak out a couple of bucks but I'm wondering if there might be something more...if not grain, IDK...something

IF you raised enough corn to sell, AND you could do that on 30+ acres, youd have to also have a truck of at least 1 1/2 ton capacity, and picker AND a sheller, OR a picker/sheller, and those are RARE. Other than that, you would have to have a combine with ah picker head. Old combines that only got used on say 30 acres a year OR LESS as my dad only used his on around 15 can be found with 4 row heads. They arent really all that expensive. BUT, If your not great machanic, then youve got to be darn careful you arent buying a cave on rubber thats fulla bolts and nots and junk.
Youve got to have a grain bin s, A savvy farmer as you want to be would want to hold the corn till the price was at the highest before selling it.

IF you wanted to save the stalks to feed cows, youd have to pick the corn with a corn binder, run the corn bundles through a husker shredder, THEN run the corn through a sheller, then store it. Thats likely alot more work than a modern day farmer wants to do.

I've never made silage but I've thought about trying it on a small scale...couldn't you just run the whole thing through a shredder and pack it away?

I think opportunity is there for sure. Grains as we have established is iffy, but are you anywhere near a large center? If you have a ready market and large population, something I wish my farm had, (though I do love the calm aloneness factor!), the sky is the limit, truly.

Do you REALLY prefer growing plants, or animals? If animals, you could raise any number of small critters and make decent profit if you team up with a farmer who grows grains, so that you can avoid the middle man. I must say, grain prices have gone up and down since time immemorial. They will not stay sky high forever. It is the processors and middle men who raise their prices, blame high grain prices, then rarely re-lower them when grain goes down as it always has and will yet again.

If you raise animals and partner with a guy who grows feed grains, or even grow some of your own, you could do well, if you market the end product by calling it natural, or entering that kind of a niche market. Many consumers have strange and bizarre pre-conceived notions about big bad ag, (LOL), that you can capitalize on. Heck, I am a "big bad ag" kind of guy, but that does not preclude me from raising certain things and using the latest buzzwords to capitalize on consumers unfounded trepidation. It is called marketing.

So, you have no location that I can see, which means we must all guess at what may grow well where you live, what animals may be well suited, crops, veggies, etc..

"Free range" poultry is one thing that people are crazy for. Quail for eggs take practically no space and hardly any feed. Pumpkins for halloween in some areas are good. Sweet corn. Sheep. Goats for meat. For milk. Cheese. Vineyards, Greenhouses, lillies, raising pork like Mr. highlands is so good at. Asparagus, raspberries, basil, green beans.

The potential is limitless if you have a ready market.

I am a conventional farmer. I raise grains, I use fertilizers and herbicides. I seed some gm crops. But I also see merit in other ways of farming. I DO other ways of farming. I have MANY ideas I would utilize if only I had a ready market. As a businessman, I think about these things CONSTANTLY. That is what people here often have trouble with understanding about me, and others who farm in a larger way. They say we are monsanto schills, yet we are often very old school farmers, who see the benefits, environmental and otherwise, of gm crops. An open mind is a key of business. Knowing facts instead of fear is necessary to make strong decisions.

I think if you do your due diligence in research, a niche could be found that your acreage would easily support. I think grains would be tough, highly expensive to have machinery for etc.. There are more economical ways to farm, especially on limited acreage. And especially if you think you could raise "organic" grains, and sell them for less than big bad ag somehow...

But it would be great if you didn't mind telling us where on this earth you are located...

Cheers,

Dale

Silage is when the plant is put away wet, packed well to remove air, and sealed to keep O2 away.

Husker-shredder stuff is with the dry plants after the grain is removed, it's put away dry, more like a hay bale. It is easier to manage and store, but has less protien value.

Just so we are all on the same page. We seem to speak different language, so am trying to proceed carefully.

Silage is beat if it is cut with a sharp blade to a specific length for your type of critter. It would be best if you can make that happen, but yes folks on here have talked of making small scale silage as you suggest. The trouble with small amounts is the large percent of water, you end up with not so much feed in a small area. Silage tends to be a big-volume feed...

--->Paul

I am sure that you have run the numbers on the hay against your needs, it is either worth it or not.

Best financial advice I was given long ago is this. "Find a need that is not being met and fill it before someone else does."

Ideas are endless, good advice is hard to come by.

Do your market research for your area.
Find a need to fill.
Stick to what you already know, are familiar with, or can learn quickly.
Choose something with minimal investment for the greatest return.
Run the numbers.
Diversity may not make you the most in the short run but it may be what saves your bacon in the long run.
An add on in your current field(s) may make more sense.

Do you currently have an off or less busy season that you can take advantage of?
How long is your season?
What are the limiting factors of the land?
Is there water access?
Do you have other skills that you can take advantage of?
Are you a risk taker or are you looking for steady income?

I have browsed through most of the forums here and there are many good ideas. I suggest that you do the same in the areas that you are at least familiar with.

While the list of options we have is long due to our experience, knowledge base and extended family, only you can set those for yourself.

In our area one of the best returns is bees. In our area reported yearly colony loss is about 3 percent against most areas of the USA that are currently reported as running about 30 percent.
Another good thing in our area is Certified Organic feed and hay.

It is so difficult to refine a lengthy list down to a few helpful ideas with so little information.

Good luck!

I did not say we didn't make money in 50 years. What I said was that it was hard to make money when you had to buy land and equipment. We know plenty of family farmers that are doing fairly well. They have one thing in common. Their families planned to keep the farms in the family. They are also hard workers. They aren't worried about "sticking it to" anybody. They plan for their children and grandchildren to take over the farm.

Your posting made it pretty plain you don't know enough about raising crops to justify buying land and expect to make money. How long are you going to have to farm to pay for the land? How much profit will you be able to make? What is average cost per acre in your area?

You should have simply asked everyone to tell you that your idea was brilliant. You obviously are not interested in facts.

Darntootin, I farm in Northern NYS, did dairy most of my life and now just continue with beef and hay.

From what you describe of your area, I would buy those fields that you can afford that will be building lots in the future and sit on them as hay fields to keep them as an investment for the future. Depending on real estate tax, and so forth, of course.

I personally would stick with hay because that's what you know, and that's what you have the equipment for. Horse people (horse people on here, please close your ears and know I don't mean anything bad by this) will pay ridiculous amounts of money to keep their animals in good hay and have it delivered to them. I have a neighbor who trucks small bales to CT and NJ for horse owners and the occasional city-person-living-in-the-country with a few head of beef. And that's a long haul from where I live to those places, but he gets a lot of business.

If you are really set on trying grain, the weather in the NE is not always cooperative for grain, but if you do it, by all means buy the field(s) that are the best soils for grain. If you've got something with heavy clay, it may be fertile as all get out but it won't dry early enough in the spring to get it sown fast enough.

If we get more dry years like this last one, hay is a really good crop to be bringing in. My hay was down at least a third this past summer, and that's scary to contemplate happening again.

One thing about land in your own neighborhood: It may not come up for sale at a price you can afford again in your lifetime. I would buy it.

Good luck.

__________________
-Northern NYS

Land that yields 100 small square bales an acre with good management is not good enough to grow a profitable grain crop consistantly.I would stay with what you know the most about--------hay.You should be able to pencil it out to see if there is a profit to be made.You could experiment on a few acres trying other things.

Ive lived in Kans, Mo, and Okla. Ive never heard of anybody thinking 100 small bales an acre was bad. Far as I know, they all thought it was fantastic.

If you can't get 300 bales an acre a year off an alfalfa field here, you won't be in business very long. Land costs, taxes, and so forth.

That's the thing with internet questions, it's so hard to answer because location makes so much difference.

For any question like this one, looking out my own window, my reply would always be, grow field corn, grow field corn, grow corn, it pays better than any other crop by far! That is why close to 3/4 of the farmland in my county is growing corn.

But heck, corn might not even _grow_ in his neck of the woods, and if he's by a city that wants fresh veggies and willing to put in the work, that would sure out preform a grain crop. Sweet corn, pumpkins, and so on.

Hay seems to be a good 'hobby' or part time crop, once one has the equipment you just do some upkeep on it and the costs aren't bad. It's an all summer job, but the work load is spread out that way, tracotor, mower, rake, baler, wagon, shed to store it in, pretty basic equipment list - not like grain crops. There seems to be a universal market for hay everywhere, some hosre and beef folk in all corners of the country.

The crop itself is tough even if mother nature or insects or your lack of attention beat it up some, you get 2 or 4 cuttings a year so you can recover for one bad harvest of it not all eggs in one basket like grain crops. Doesn't need so much attention to weeds and planting once you get set up.

Some years it produces a lot, and maybe the weather makes poorer bales, but you get a lot of them to sell.

Spome years the weather really cuts back on the crop you get, but the price goes way up then.

So it tends to give you a good return year in and year out.

If your ground is so dry you only get 100 bales an acre, then hay probably is a good crop to remain with.

--->Paul

300 bales an acre. Then suckers couldnt be more than 20ft apart BOTH WAYS lol

Do you think the Lamborghini factory could make a profit against Ford by building aspire's?
Your in the same spot. its hard for a guy with 26 acres to compete on the same PRODUCTS as the guy with 26,000 acres....so dont.
If you must grow the same crops do it way different.
instead of growing corn like a grain farmer grow it with pumpkins and water melons in the rows....not sure that would work its just a example.
Better yet do something the BIG farmers cant!

thats all cuttings not just one cutting like your thinking.