Buy right & buy once ?

[flusher]

Hi all,

We recently bought a 50ac farm and are now looking at what we need to run it. Its rolling terrain of 30ac tillage, 10 pasture, 10 woodland. The tillage has just come out of CRP.

We had a small beef operation growing up but Ive no real experience of the ins and outs of tillage. [Im even considering renting the tillable gound to a neighbour for a couple of years so as not to bite off too much at once].

Im approaching this tractor as a 20+ year investment decision - I want to "buy right and buy once" so Id like to borrow your experience to help with the decision making. Heres what Im thinking.

40-55 HP - smaller frame would help around the woodland, cab wouldnt.
4WD - some of the pasture terrain is steep enough
FEL - w/ skid steer capability (material handling & some contruction/grading work)
Shuttle/Gear shift (love HST but dont see too many HSTs doing tillage)
Class II 3PT - seems like its easier to pick up good deals on class II implements as the big operators arent interested in them. Round bale spear might be needed for pastured animals.
R1s - for pulling ground engaging equipment & loader work traction. I dont need it to do double duty and cut lawns etc.

Im torn on the old/new decision. The old stuff lasts and I could probably buy a decent older tractor+FEL outright for about $10k. And I enjoy wrenching on stuff so that would almost pull me into looking used.
But with current financing offers Im giving serious consideration to buying new. (And can redirect my hard earned stuff into fixing up the barn etc).

Im not hung up on any brand - did grow up with MF and JD so probably have some bias there. I do like the MF2600 series and the JD5045E but could see myself just as happy on older machines (maybe the older the better).

Wow - I dont think Ive written anything that long since I left school

Look forward to hearing from you.

If you're thinking about doing hay on that 30 acres, then you probably will need something in the 75hp range to handle larger size implements (round baler towing a bale wagon, disc mower, 15-ft wide tandem or offset wheel disc, 15-20 ft wide field cultivator/spike harrow, etc). There are numerous tractor choices in this size range both new and used.

I grow hay on 6 of my 10 acres using a 2008 Mahindra 5525 (54 hp engine, 45 hp pto, 2WD, gear tranny, power steering) with the ML250 FEL (6 ft wide bucket, 2950 lb lift to 10.5 ft height). Cost: about $20K including skid steer quick attach on the FEL.



With my small acreage I can get by with much smaller implements and could have gone with a 45 hp tractor. But I got a good deal on the 5525 so that's my go-to tractor now.

 

[TripleR]

I hope I don't offend anyone as it certainly is not my intent, but if you are even thinking about doing any type of farming, do some research, talk to some farmers and develop a plan. Only then will you be able to make a good decision.

One problem you are going to face first is finding row crop equipment as 4, 6, 8 row equipment isn't even available in most areas as production farmers have all gone big and this equipment is no longer profitable to make. Plowing, disking, hipping takes a lot of trips through the field and high fuel costs. You may want to consider "no till", but go price a unit; expensive. You will need to run a sub-soiler every two or three years to break up the hard-pan to a depth of no less than two feet and this take a LOT of power and weight.

Are you going to pay someone to fertilize, apply herbicides, insecticides; what kind will you need or are you going to buy your own equipment?

Who is going to repair your equipment and how quick can they get to the field or are you going to spend the money for a truck and trailer to haul it where it may still wait in line while the weather window passes and your crops are degraded by weather.

How are you going to harvest your crops? Will your acreage be enough to where someone will run their equipment over and spend their time harvesting and hauling. Where are you going to dry your crops and store them?

I love farming, but quit years ago; just no money on a small scale, at least not for me, but heck you may do better.

 

[jenkinsph]

Yer Man,


I see you hail from Wisconsin so I wouldn't rule out a cab tractor so fast. Lots of people have the preconceived notion that the glass cabs are easily broken. Think about this, a branch that can break the glass can also break your neck. I would advise you to give this some consideration, you would still need to fit the rops through the branches and the operator is ahead of the rops. Much safer to take a pole saw and trim a path thru the woods. If the cab really would make that much difference then you will likely be tearing and scratching and bending up other parts of your tractor.

If you are buying a tractor for the long haul on 50 acres I would consider a 50 to 75 hp tractor in a more deluxe configuration, that is with cab, extra hydraulic options, power reverser or hydro, upgraded seat and top n tilt. Tilling with a hydro is not a problem either, I do it frequently in my business.

I brought up the cab, higher hp, better transmissions and my preference for hydro because I have read so many threads here where people upgrade their tractors. Most are looking for more tractor size and a cab, these two items seem to be the most important to them. Upgrading is usually more expensive than the right one the first time.

 

[Soundguy]

with that much land, divided the way it is.. I'd almost say 2 tractors would be the ideal setup. perhaps an older larger tractor for the brute force jobs, and a smaller more nimble machine with a quick attach loader.

split perhaps somewhere as a 50 to 70 hp on the top end, and for the nimble machine.. 20 to mid 30, 4wd, hst trans, and that removeable loader so you can keep it high and tight inthe woods, but slap it back on when needed to move stuff around.

soundguy

 

[jenkinsph]

Triple R,

I would have to agree with you, farming and crops are hard to justify in a financial sense. I do what I WAN'T to do and consider fun.


One of the reasons I suggest the hydro over gear tractors is most people with small acreages will not do that much tillage anyway. Over the long term a tractor on these small farms seem to see a lot of utility chores for the most part.

 

[TripleR]

Triple R,

I would have to agree with you, farming and crops are hard to justify in a financial sense. I do what I WAN'T to do and consider fun.


One of the reasons I suggest the hydro over gear tractors is most people with small acreages will not do that much tillage anyway. Over the long term a tractor on these small farms seem to see a lot of utility chores for the most part.

Can't argue with that, I spend far more time on my tractors than my Grizzly or Rhino. In my 60's however I find I can't stand as much "fun" as I use to, so I restrict my "farming" to food plots. I also have to make enough money to pay taxes on land I have taken out of production for re-forestation, conservation, game management, ponds and such. My "business partner" can handle breaking even, but frowns on negative cash flow.

 

[wampum]

Just my 2 cents. I would seriously look at a used tractor,like a Deere 4020,for the crops.And a smaller FWD tractor with a loader for the chores. That away you can have your cake and eat it to for about the price of a new High HP tractor.

 

[IslandTractor]

with that much land, divided the way it is.. I'd almost say 2 tractors would be the ideal setup. perhaps an older larger tractor for the brute force jobs, and a smaller more nimble machine with a quick attach loader.

split perhaps somewhere as a 50 to 70 hp on the top end, and for the nimble machine.. 20 to mid 30, 4wd, hst trans, and that removeable loader so you can keep it high and tight inthe woods, but slap it back on when needed to move stuff around.

soundguy

The only thing better than one tractor is two tractors. I've never farmed but the idea of having a nimble utility tractor in addition to whatever is needed to pull large ground engaging implements or big harvesting tools makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[pitt_md]

TripleR is right on as far as I am concerned. I wanted to put up my own hay for our horses and looking at the equipment needed I decided to hire out all the expensive equipment. I tilled the field and had it planted in alfalfa. I hire a guy to cut and bail it into 800 lb. large squares. I use my tractor with grapple to pick up and stack in the barn. After feeding my horses for the winter I have enough left over to sell and cover all the expenes and hire the farm coop to apply fertilizer in the spring. No way I could ever justify everything needed to do these tasks but doing it the way i explained I have about as close to free hay as your going to get.

 

[TripleR]

The only thing better than one tractor is two tractors. I've never farmed but the idea of having a nimble utility tractor in addition to whatever is needed to pull large ground engaging implements or big harvesting tools makes a lot of sense to me.

And the only thing better than two tractors is...

It really is hard to find one tractor to do it all. My father in law tried the one tractor route and wound up having to buy the tractor back that he had traded in for a bigger one and paid a couple thousand dollars more than he got in trade.