How agriculture works thread

[5030]

They contract their fuel in December. Last year I was in the office when they contracted red fuel. 250,000 gallons at $2.43 p/gallon. Curious to see what they have to pay this year.

It ain't gonna be that cheap this time around.

 

[ovrszd]

It ain't gonna be that cheap this time around.

Nope. They contract everything they can. So this year their input costs weren't very much higher than last. Not going to be so lucky this time....

 

[ovrszd]

Sorry if this has been posted previously. I found it very interesting. 40 years ago when I first started doing vacations in the San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado a LOT of vegetables were harvested by hand. Now that percentage is small. But some is necessary.

 

[5030]

Depends entirely on the crop pocked actually. Cabbage is 100% had pocked, so are sauce tomatoes and green peppers.

 

[ovrszd]

I have regretted for years not taking pics of the farm laborers back then.

One example was harvesting Spinach. All hand cut and packed in peck baskets. Baskets loaded on flatbed trucks and hauled to town. There was a huge icehouse there with a mountain of crushed ice piled on a huge loading dock. Field trucks backed up to the South side of the dock. Over the road reefer van trailers backed up to the North side. Workers scurrying like ants on an ant hill. Grab a peck basket, carry it to the ice pile, open the lid. A scoop of ice added to the top, lid replaced. Carry to the van trailers and stacked inside. Van trailer gets full, shuts doors and takes off to it's destination somewhere in the U.S. Repeat. All day long. Fresh spinach.

 

[ArlyA]

The Welkers in Montana are servicing one of the BIG buds that has a radiator leak. He also speak of there 60ft cultivator or is it a chisel plow, they've been using.

 

[ArlyA]

This is quite the JD marketing film from the 1950's.

 

[ovrszd]

This is quite the JD marketing film from the 1950's.

I've saw this. Just imagine what the operators thought as they were running this equipment!!!! It would be like an operator today running a 500HP tractor pulling a 50ft implement.

 

[ArlyA]

I thought the amount of times the narrator said "speed and quicker" was comical.

 

[Cycledude]

Laura Farms has some interesting videos

21-year-old Nebraskan shines as social media ag influencer

 

[cqaigy2]

This is quite the JD marketing film from the 1950's.

Home depot bucket?

 

[ArlyA]

This 1950s film about Euclid trucks showed up on my Yturd feed. This 1/2 hour is quite interesting and the fact that cabs were not the norm on them for many years. They also made scraper-conveyor systems to load trucks.

 

[ovrszd]

In my early years it was common to see Euclid construction equipment. Especially scrapers.

Our operators today, me included, are sooooo spoiled.

 

[5030]

Sure changed ownership a lot. When I was a kid, that was all you saw on heavy construction sites.

 

[ovrszd]

Sure changed ownership a lot. When I was a kid, that was all you saw on heavy construction sites.

Wasn't uncommon for a scraper to be called a Euclid, regardless of brand.

 

[aczlan]

Depends entirely on the crop pocked actually. Cabbage is 100% had pocked, so are sauce tomatoes and green peppers.

Not all cabbage is hand picked:

Cabbage harvester | Vanhoucke Machine Engineering

The cabbage harvester is suitable for harvesting different types of cabbage, like red cabbage, white cabbage and green cabbage. We offer two main types of harvesters, one for industrial treated cabbage (direct processing) and one for fresh market (storage) cabbage. The harvesting principle is...

vanhoucke.engineering

Aaron Z

 

[5030]

It is here, 100% by migrants.

 

[sixdogs]

John Deere 8RX 370 with a 9 shank ripper going 2 ft deep uphill and down hill.

Around here there is no more deep ripping. The most you would see is maybe 14" and that would be the old timers used to doing it that way. Common now is either vertical tillage that slits the ground with almost no surface disruption or cultivators with either sweeps or spikes for minimal surface and trash disruption. The trend and progression to zero till is obvious.

The 200 acre field across the road from me has been near zero till for around 25 years and yields are great. One trip is plant in the spring and then another to spray. Another spray after that and then harvest in the fall. That's pretty much it other than fertilizer flotation spreaders.

 

[5030]

Nice thing about no till is the wind don't blow away the topsoil either. Big issue here.

 

[sixdogs]

This is all there is to it.
And she's not even farming that many acres...


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