|
North Central Indiana | It takes about 4 extra minutes to fill our box planter compared to our center fill. We can plant 2.5 hours of corn on a seed fill. So a 10 hour day takes us 20 extra minutes of filling. Or about 12 acres of capacity loss per 10 hours. IMO it’s really really hard to pay for a $300k planter by “saving” 20 or even 30 minutes of labor each day and more (or less) timely planting of 12 acres. Especially when the planter we run has been paid off for 11 seasons and has been upgraded to hydraulic downforce and electric drive, and has air adjust rowcleaners, and the fertilizer setup we like. But keep pushing that pencil I suppose. As an aside, we pull the planter with a 25 year old tractor that we know all the history on and the corn has never once complained about the age of the tractor or planter. Now conversely the neighbor with an 8rx and a new exactemerge 1775 looks way cooler, albeit at a $750k price tag on his combo. We work ground with 33 year old tractors. The disk, striptill bar/nh3, ripper, finisher, VT, and any other tillage tool we’ve run over the years hasn’t complained about the age of the tractor pulling it either. And it has auto steer and an air ride seat and good heat and a/c. But 2 9rx or quad track and a new high speed disk and a disk chisel and a new VT would all be pretty neat to run if not for the price tag. And believe it or not the old coop fertilizer spreader that now has vrt drive on it spreads fertilizer the same way a new spread box would. Honestly it’s looking like a good time to upgrade if we decide to on some stuff, and our 70 series Deere combines would be the next upgrades.
All that to say, there has been and is and will be large used machinery at good values. A farm drowning in machinery cost is 100% farmer choice. Ever penciled out the cost per acre on a well used combine vs new? We have. It’s not pretty for the new machines. Can’t be afraid to work on stuff but I’ve also found that our 60x60 shop and a torpedo heater make the winter months very nice for tackling about any job you could have on older equipment. I’ve never felt we don’t have enough time for maintenance and service/repair work in the offseason. | |
|
Farm economics from below
