Grain equipment, small scale

[Bfitzgerald3]

I recently had a conversation with a local baker that wants to produce a local loaf of bread. There isnt a food source of local breadflour and he's asked if i'd like to work on the project. One aspect that may make things interesting,is that there is sufficient demqnd here to charge a premium on such loaves, possibly making small scale production feasible.

I know nothing about growing/harvesting grain, but thought this could be a good thread. Some questions/thoughts...

1) i like the idea but am probably not the person to supply the grain. If you are local here (emmet county, mi) and think you can supply the baker, pm me and i'll forward your contact info.
2) does equipment exist that could be run on my tractor... Kubota MX5100? I could plant 30-40 acres, possibly more with work to clear fields.
3) do you know of any web resources for me to lean as much as possible so i can have an intelligent conversation here.
4) is this being done elsewhere?

Thanks!

 

[Egon]

Best check to see of. You can grow the proper wheat for flour.

Then comes the fun part, spending money!

Disk/cultivator/harrows
Seeder/fertilizer/sprayer
Swather/combine/grain auger/storage bin
Inspection/food grade grinding/packaging

Do some math.. Locate someone who will do the work with his equipment. Do more math. Then make a choice; go broke quickly or stay as is

Please note my knowledge is limited and well out of date.

 

[Marveltone]

I'm no grain farmer, so I can't help you with the planting/harvesting questions, but my wife and I do grind our own flour. I can at least give a tiny bit of insight in the grinding end of your question. The most common utility bread flour for us is hard red winter wheat. We presently buy our wheat berries in bulk from a large commercial organic farm/mill about 80 miles away. It gets stored in airtight, food grade containers once we get it home. For our daily baking and consumption, we grind once or twice a week, as whole wheat flour will go rancid real fast, so it needs to be used fresh. All our grinding is done by hand, as we only need, 10-12 cups of flour at a time, which usually takes me about 15 min.

We do plan on growing and harvesting our own wheat in the future, but our meager personal quantities can be done by hand, so I'm afraid most of what I'll learn from that process will be of little help to someone who needs larger quantities to supply a baker.

Joe

 

[flusher]

Your MX5100 (52 hp engine, 45 hp pto) is about the same size as my 2008 Mahindra 5525 (55 hp engine, 45 hp pto). 30-40 acres is a fairly large parcel. You might be able to pull an 8-10 ft wide wheel disc (aka transport disc) with your tractor under dry soil conditions--soft, moist soil might be a problem for your tractor with this size disc.
You will need a grain drill with both seed and fertilizer boxes. You can find used 10-12 ft wide drills for a few thousand bucks.
Your big problem is the combine. My neighbor does about 100 acres of wheat and his big dollar item is his used combine (about $15K investment).

What can I say--good luck