Farmers lobbying for the right to fix own tractors

[ovrszd]

What are some profitable crops per acre?

Corn and beans are generally profitable. But not profitable to pay $4,000 per acre (my location) for tillable land.

A new farmer with no assets cannot buy land and machinery and ever pay it off.

So tillable farm land tends to be purchased by established farmers and/or corporations. They can service the debt with their assets, not relying on annual profits. Thus the size of the average continues to get larger. This trend is irreversable.

 

[MF283]

Small scale is a thing of the past, as mentioned you can't make enough money. I used to help my wife's uncle with 1000 acres around here, a lot of that was leased, fortunately it was all close by & cost quite a bit just to get the land ready for crops.
Those were some hard, fun days for someone like me that would love to be able to do it, the CAPITAL it takes is unreal & i know today it would be even more.

Ronnie

 

[Deezl Smoke]

It's always entertaining to read the "my friend" or "I heard" replies. I know, I use them once in a while too. But every one of you are using a "computer" to participate here. Computers and electronics are not all bad even on equipment. If only you knew just how much we benefit from computer controlled equipment.

An actual, factual story for example. I run old, 1980s and 90s equipment for the most part but also have newer stuff with "computer" control. Anyway, back in about 97 or 98, while combining fescue, the combine thresher just rapidly slowed to the stop. Only alarms were the slow shaft speed monitors.(electronics and they work wonders) So I throttle back and jump out to see what happened. Turned out the pto cooler line popped and I lost all pto fluid, causing a a complete destruction of the pto. Had to tow it to the shop since I was lucky enough to be in a field right next to the shop. So now the machine is down for several days while the weather is good for harvest.

Now had the machine had a modern electronic system like the slow shaft speed monitor, it would have had a sensor on the pto fluid pressures as well and likely saved me the high cost of pto replacement when the instant the pressure was lost, I could have shut the machine down and put a new line on and replenished the fluid.

We still run that machine and have bought another just like it so we are not down during harvest. But that is mainly because we like this particular vintage of equipment and are comfortable working on it and servicing it. I love seeing what new stuff the manufacturers come out with in new technology. We just can not afford it on this farm.

If any of you are old enough to have owned and operated a car or pickup during the 70s and 80s, you will recall all the extra work it took to keep your rig from pinging and knocking on the new gas that constantly showing up at the pumps. You had to ****** the timing such that it robbed hp and fuel mileage in order to keep the engine from destruction if you wanted to pull a trailer or haul anything. Today that is all taken care of faster than you can blink an eye with the computer. No load, it times things just right. Heavy load it makes all the adjustments for you to make the most of the components.

So computers are not all bad. But I can sure respect those that "choose" to not buy any more of it than they want to for their personal reasons.

 

[The Fred]

If any of you are old enough to have owned and operated a car or pickup during the 70s and 80s, you will recall all the extra work it took to keep your rig from pinging and knocking on the new gas that constantly showing up at the pumps. You had to ****** the timing such that it robbed hp and fuel mileage in order to keep the engine from destruction if you wanted to pull a trailer or haul anything. Today that is all taken care of faster than you can blink an eye with the computer. No load, it times things just right. Heavy load it makes all the adjustments for you to make the most of the components.

So computers are not all bad. But I can sure respect those that "choose" to not buy any more of it than they want to for their personal reasons.

BINGO! And if you think you are going to fix your own computer controlled machine effectively without the proper diagnostic program you would be wrong. Just because right to repair allows you access to the information doesn't give you the tools or knowledge to repair it.

I fix cars on a regular basis that other shops who have not invested in decent equipment just throw parts at. Ask any legit (mostly dealer) technician and they will tell you story after story about being able to hook up to a vehicle and diagnosing it in 15 minutes after some hack shop or hack do it yourselfer tried fixing it and throwing parts at it with a simple code reader.

It just doesn't happen unless you get lucky, Fred

38 acre parcel next to me sold for $200,000 for corn. Useable acreage is 27 acres, that's $7400 per acre for corn that goes to feed cows when the price of milk has tanked. Carry on!

 

[MessickFarmEqu]

38 acre parcel next to me sold for $200,000 for corn. Useable acreage is 27 acres, that's $7400 per acre for corn that goes to feed cows when the price of milk has tanked. Carry on!

farmland in my area can go for up to $20,000\acre. We have the most productive non-irrigated acreage in the country so guys can get more off it, but its hard to imagine the years it takes to pay it off.

 

[Gator6x4]

If anyone really understood what it took to own, use and maintain the diagnostic tools no one would want them! Its not as easy as plugging into a USB port.

I personally do support the right to modify your equipment though. Part of this right-to-own thing is the manufacturers trying to claim copyright and ownership of software and the way it works. Thats annoying to me. If your smart enough to tweak with the software in a product that you own it should be your right to do that.

The big question you didn't answer is, if I tweak a $300,000 combine and it destroys itself because of the tweaks, will you give me another one to tweak also?

 

[RaydaKub]

farmland in my area can go for up to $20,000\acre. We have the most productive non-irrigated acreage in the country so guys can get more off it, but its hard to imagine the years it takes to pay it off.

And that's just the land price. Add equipment (and maint and seed and fert......) to that and the answer is basically infinity because you can't ever get there.

 

[Got2BTru]

My Mahindra has a standard OBDII diagnostics port just like my car and truck. I use the same code scanner on the tractor as I use on the truck. All you need are the specialized codes once in awhile but most times the a standard code scanner will get you though.

I found this out a couple weeks ago..VERY nice!!!

 

[Kubota 2350]

If anyone really understood what it took to own, use and maintain the diagnostic tools no one would want them! Its not as easy as plugging into a USB port.

I personally do support the right to modify your equipment though. Part of this right-to-own thing is the manufacturers trying to claim copyright and ownership of software and the way it works. Thats annoying to me. If your smart enough to tweak with the software in a product that you own it should be your right to do that.

I agree, the word ownership should mean just that, If you buy the tractor, it's yours to do what you want with it.

 

[Sprinklerman]

They dont grow too many crops around me , they grow houses . 4 acres a mile from me , zoned for 5 houses per acre sold for 1.2 million . And that was before site work .