Amazed !

[flusher]

Yeah, you need big equipment to do big time farming. My neighbor grows hay on 50 acres and uses this Steiger Super Wildcat and a 20-ft wide disc to do primary tillage. It has a 150+hp Cat diesel engine.

 

[sd455dan]

Some Big Buds still for sale on tractor house
hows 525 HP and a (retro) early 80's look and build sound

https://media.sandhills.com/img.axd...aM1xeERvri0mhD7AGhvz34x5rfjNCQXU9PD1RR+jtuu4=

 

[TheMadOne]

JD just announced a 6 series with 250 PTO horsepower and 21,000 lbs of 3 PT lift. Crazy.

That thing is a 6 series on paper only. It should be a 7 or even 8. The reason it's in the 6 series, from what I've heard/read/watched(TTWT youtube video), is that Germans like 6 series tractors and wanted more out of them. So JD built that thing. Marketing at its finest.

 

[rScotty]

Yep, the disc they pull behind those large tractors look like they could disc several acres at a time. I guess they have to be that large, or it would take them a month to disc the fields.

I never knew Arkansas was big in farming till I visited my son there.
My son knows one of the farmers and he farms several thousand acres. I can't imagine having several thousand acres !

Just wonder how they farmed that much land back in the day when a 30-50 hp tractor was considered a large tractor ? lol

I remember in the 1950s that when our family worked doing farm work it was always for a farmer who owned their own land - and it seemed to always be be in the1180 to 360 acre size. Our family would go there or a couple of months at a time and we would stay in a sort of cabin or little shack that was set there as temporary housing for the hired help (that's us). For some farmers we would eat dinner. with the family and others not. But the farmer's wife would see to it that there was breakfast and a sack lunch sandwich in the field.

My guess is that in the early part of the century until the post WWII years a lot of the US population lived on that size family farms which could be farmed with those 30 to 50 hp tractors...but farmers really had to guess right versus the weather. It seemed to me that lots of them were alcoholics.

I'm guessing that as more people moved to town to work for industy the remaining farms joined together and got larger. The first really big 200 HP tractors that I saw were in the mid 1960s in the big grain fields from Western Kansas, Neb, and on to N. Dakota. Eastern Kansas and Oklahoma were still mostly family farms at that time.
rScotty

 

[TheMadOne]

I remember in the 1950s that when our family worked doing farm work it was always for a farmer who owned their own land - and it seemed to always be be in the1180 to 360 acre size. Our family would go there or a couple of months at a time and we would stay in a sort of cabin or little shack that was set there as temporary housing for the hired help (that's us). For some farmers we would eat dinner. with the family and others not. But the farmer's wife would see to it that there was breakfast and a sack lunch sandwich in the field.

My guess is that in the early part of the century until the post WWII years a lot of the US population lived on that size family farms which could be farmed with those 30 to 50 hp tractors...but farmers really had to guess right versus the weather. It seemed to me that lots of them were alcoholics.

I'm guessing that as more people moved to town to work for industy the remaining farms joined together and got larger. The first really big 200 HP tractors that I saw were in the mid 1960s in the big grain fields from Western Kansas, Neb, and on to N. Dakota. Eastern Kansas and Oklahoma were still mostly family farms at that time.
rScotty

My dad worked as a farmhand for the biggest farm in the valley when he was a kid in the early 1960s. 112 tillable acres, and some of that was only tillable due to an Oliver cleatrac. When I was a kid our neighbor made a good living as a dairy farmer with 80 tillable acres. That was in the 1980s. It's only been in the last 20 years or so that we've really seen the end of family farming here in PA. I hope the trend reverses, but the economies of scale have to be combated somehow. Small operations need a cash crop to replace tobacco. I keep hearing the buzz about hemp, but fully legal MJ might be the crop that saves the small farmer.

 

[300UGUY]

Kubota seems to be going after the dairy market. They sell hay equipment, and tillage stuff now.

 

[CobyRupert]

They didn't farm that much land back in the day here . a huge farm was maybe 500 acres . Back in the early 90's we had 500 acres of peanuts and that was HUGE in those days we did everything with 150hp tractors. WHen older guys died or retired the mega farmers started leasing and to be about to keep up with thousands of acres you had to buy or lease bigger equipment to cover more ground faster. The profit margins were greater in those days also and it did not require as much land to live comfortable. The cost of everything is 3 times what it was but the price for the commodity is the same as it was back then. Its volume only business now

Yep, growing up in the 70's, I remember dairy farms with 20 cows that would support a family of 8. Sure they weren't rich but survived. They eventually got forced out by the 50-70 cows farms and maybe 1 hired hand and were the big guys.

Now a "family farm" with 150 cows can barely survive. And they're getting pushed out by the 1000+ cow agri-business that hires Mexicans where the cow spends it's life between the feed lot and the milking parlor.

That's the nature of capitalism. If the prices fall, self-interest says I better make more product to make up the difference. But everybody says that. Downward spiral. In my town there's an old big building, The Old "Grange Hall" (a famers union hall). It's abandoned now and 70% of the farms have disappeared.

 

[Streetcar]

Mj will be grown in warehouses another large scale crop

 

[TheMadOne]

Mj will be grown in warehouses another large scale crop

I can't imagine warehouse growing will be at all economical once things settle into the new normal of legalization. That's a huge amount of overhead.(pun intended) I'm sure some boutique strains will be handled that way, but the mass market "skunk weed" will probably be grown in fields.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

Here in Ohio, 1000-1500 acre farm is decently common, I know of 5 farmers with farms that big. I know of many more with farms 400-700 acre range.

I’m Ohio we mainly farm with smaller equipment, most the farmers I mentioned, their biggest machine is 250-300hp, on the other side of the fam they farm around 600 acres and the biggest machine they have is 2188 Case combine and a 350hp Case magnum tractor. Many of their farmer buddies farm 1000-1500 acre farms.

Lots of old machines ran in Ohio, the fam farm I mentioned, they run lots of tractors in the 75-150hp range, old IH and Case machines.

All the machines I mentioned are owned, Ohio farmers from what I can see own the equipment, idk any that lease them all.

Farms out west with those mega machines are prob farming 10,000+ acres. Not 1000-1500 lol.

A side note, it makes me laugh when a neighbor of mine or old friend says I have a large tractor, I always call my tractor a large garden tractor because it’s HST. To a suburbanite it’s a huge tractor, to tractor people, 4 family (48hp) tractor is quite small.

 

[kenmac]

You have to hit your ideal window or suffer huge percentage losses off your yield.

That seems to be a problem in Arkansas right now. When we were there, most of those large farming fields were flooded because of heavy rains they have had.
The farmers were saying it was going to take some time before they can get into the fields to start plowing up ground soon

 

[kenmac]

Kubota seems to be going after the dairy market. They sell hay equipment, and tillage stuff now.

well, I think the're a little late to the game. Most of the dairy farms are now big corporations .
There use to be 7 independent dairy farms within 10 miles of me. They all took a tax payer buy out back in the late 70' early 80's.
I don't know of any independent dairy farmers in my county, or any neighboring county

 

[TheMadOne]

well, I think the're a little late to the game. Most of the dairy farms are now big corporations .
There use to be 7 independent dairy farms within 10 miles of me. They all took a tax payer buy out back in the late 70' early 80's.
I don't know of any independent dairy farmers in my county, or any neighboring county

It's not that dire here yet. Most dairy operations around here average 300-500 acres, with Amish farms somehow staying afloat at 40-100. Kubota makes equipment big enough for the majority of those operations.

It's just that:

A: Most of these guys have run Massey/Case/Deere since their grandparents farmed and they're brand loyal to the point of pure fandom.

B: While an M7 could do the work, a lot of the farms have the budget for Magnums or what have you. Which can do the work faster.

Kubota has made a huge investment in Land Pride/Great Plains and Kverneland. They seem to be betting on being able to break into the market through the implement side and by selling tractor implement combos. Though I've noticed a distinct lack of Kubota only dealerships in my area. I imagine it's hard to sell someone on a M7 when they can see a T8 out the window.

I also think Kubota is somewhat betting on guys who have their compact tractors finally getting their hands on land and start farming. I imagine, with the sheer volume of compact units they sell, this scenario plays out a few times a year. I know that if I won the lotto tonight I'd have a farm within a year, and I wouldn't be adverse to stocking it with orange equipment.

Maybe Messicks can provide some insight there, since they're the only dealership I can think of that even stocks the larger Kubota units.

 

[rScotty]

I know that if I won the lotto tonight I'd have a farm within a year, and I wouldn't be adverse to stocking it with orange equipment.

Maybe Messicks can provide some insight there, since they're the only dealership I can think of that even stocks the larger Kubota units.

Yes, that's exactly why we buy the occassional lottery ticket. We've done well enough to own our wonderful little place in the mountains, but it isn't a farm - just sand, pine trees, hill sides, and a rocky creek. Paradise, but would love to have a small high mountain hay farm with real dirt. - even 10 or 20 acres. But that type of land is mega, mega-expensive. It would take a winning lottery to get into that much hay-growing land.
rScotty
rScotty

 

[kenmac]

It's not that dire here yet. Most dairy operations around here average 300-500 acres, with Amish farms somehow staying afloat at 40-100.
.

I sure remember when dairy farms dotted the landscape here in Alabama. Use to stop and buy milk. That was before the government /taxpayers decided there were too many dairy farms around .
I don't know of one that refused the government money and stayed in business.

I'm sure with the Amish would possibly be a different story, but there aren't any here.

Guess that farming is like cattle, Unless you have BIG numbers of cattle, so you can sell volume, You are just going to spin your wheels

 

[TerryR]

In the 1950's we farmed around a thousand acres, mostly leased, of row crops and hay in the Sacramento Valley in California. We used three McCormick Deering TD-40's, 50 hp track engines, for tillage. We used track engines to avoid compacting the clay soil, and my Dad used the already obsolete TD-40's because we could haul them to our fields in three counties on a 1-1/2 ton flat bed truck (even though they did weigh 6 tons).

We used four McCormick Farmall H's and M's for cultivating and the like. We thought their four-row rigs was a good deal in those days. <g>