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Southeast Colorado | A couple of things that would concern me. Can you get a custom harvester to use your bagger? If they are moving from customer to customer quickly they have trucks or hired truckers running with them all of the time. Do they just temporarily lay them off? Will they dump into your bagger for no additional cost? Most harvest crews look at the total dollars and if you eliminate part of their job they may not want the job anymore. At least not at the rate you are thinking. I've owned a combine most of my farming life and in my situation it has really paid off. I think where it pays the best is when you have a poor yielding crop and we have plenty of those. My wife and I do 75% of our harvesting all by ourselves. When we get into the little bit of 200 bushel corn we grow we need a little help but can usually pick up a trucker or two. When we cut milo or wheat we can do it as a two person team. The cart has to sit every now and then but a lot of the times we are dumping on the go. I suppose some people wouldn't have the patience to slow down harvest a little like I do but when I figure the money saved I know I'm way ahead. We harvested 1800 acres of wheat this year with a 2388, 800 bushel cart, and one semi in 16 days. It would have been quicker but the combine gave us a few fits. Should have been done in about 11 or 12 but that is all part of the game. I do think that if 100 bu/ac crop was as poor as I'd ever harvest I would maybe have to think twice about owning my own machine. We harvest a lot of 20-40 bu. wheat and 20-50 bu. milo. We basically work all year to grow crops that are harvested within two, two week time frames. I would hate to get excited and give away half of my profit just to be done in a one week time frame. Everybody's opinion is different. Good luck on your decision.
Edited by tmrand 7/25/2009 23:36
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Can someone work through true harvest costs with me?
