How farms and tractors have changed over the years!!!

[JD Seller]

I can well remember when my Grand Father brought home the JD 4010. It seemed massive. Big enough that would should never need anything bigger. Then years later when he bought his last tractor, an IH 1466. WOW what a BIG machine.

Now guys are talking about what older tractors are bringing about how useful they are. Well 90% of the tractors collected have ZERO use on most modern farms. Truth but it is just fact.

That JD 4010 is not even an auger tractor anymore. I found that out last year. Had it on a 13 x 85 auger putting soybeans in a bin. Just had the auger a short while. Had not really pushed it much but that day threatening rain had me wanting to get unloaded ASAP. Opened the semi hopper door wide open and just about killed the tractor when the auger got clear full. Luckily I heard it struggling and shut the door some before it completely stalled. Finished that load and went and got a JD 4440 to run it with before someone did plug the auger. Checked the JD 4010 on the dyno, right at 95ish on power.

So there is not much any of these older tractors can do on modern farms. Our two TMR/feeder wagons are over 700 cubic feet mixers. They really need 125 HP to work well. Even then you got to watch them pushing you around loaded.

I think the drive to bigger, faster equipment will just keep going. It started a 100 years ago and is still going strong.

 

[rrlund]

As always,it depends on how much you think you need to have to make a living I guess. I still use this Oliver 77 seven days a week,365 to feed silage to the cattle.

I agree though,my Uncle bought a new 4010 in 61 too. Traded his Oliver 88 in on it. He left it here one night and dad hooked on to the green chop wagon with it to haul it out to the cows. The wagon hitch was barely wide enough to slide over that massive drawbar. I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm way over powered with one 135 horse tractor,a 105 horse and a 90 horse. I farmed the same ground and at one point even more with a 90 horse 4040. All these tractors are paid for though,so I don't see the point in getting rid of any.
I've said pretty much the same thing as you're saying over and over on here through the years when somebody asks and thinks they have to have a five plow tractor to work 40 acres. Everybody's in a hurry and wants what they want,so I pretty much avoid saying it anymore.

 

[Rich'sToys]

You guys both make good points. The equipment now days compared to when I was growing up is mind boggling. Even some of the smaller farmers have this massive stuff--not to mention those guys who are trying to farm the whole county!

Already some 20 years ago I had a guy tell me that his yard tractor was a 4020! That really hit home to me at the time, and I never forgot that.

 

[Fawteen]

"8^)

 

[GreenEnvy]

I agree. Never thought I would see the day a 4020 would be too small for an auger. Neighbor installed a MW turbo on their 4020 to handle their 13x90 auger. 4020 could still be used on things like our small square baler but with my asthma and allergies I need a good cab. So that rules out 1960s tractors. Back in the 60s, our two main tractors was a JD 4020 and 5010 later on to be a 5020. Now guys use those tractors on grain vacs. We have a 1200 cubic foot TMR vertical mixer and we have our JD 8300 on it because it takes that much hp.

 

[ss55]

The 4010 was new 55 to 58 years ago. Think back to what farming was like 55 years before that in 1908. There were a few steam engines to run threshers and almost no tractors, even cars were rare, most farms did not have telephones, much less electricity. Almost all the tillage, weed control and harvest was done with horses.

To me the scale of farming, genetics, chemicals and general productivity has changed more in the last 55 years than the technology of the machinery. I suspect the next major change will be how farms are capitalized. As farms consolidate, farms will move away from small independent operations. The remaining farms will be structured more like other businesses and manufactures, with investors, a boards of directors, a CEO, full time managers, foremen, some specialized employees in the skilled trades, and more contract employees or seasonal labor.

 

[JD Seller]

Randy did you see the White 2-150 open station with roll guard over on the photo ads??? Has transmission issues but only $3500

 

[rrlund]

Didn't see it. I've seen them with a cab bring under 2000 at auctions though. They were just a Moline G1355 with different sheet metal. That 585 engine was kind of an orphan and parts for them are scarce as hens teeth. The 2-155s are a whole different story. They'll bring a good price yet.

 

[rrlund]

Makes you wonder doesn't it? Why a person using that foolproof technology can't make a living farming fewer acres with smaller equipment? Seems like we equate small scale farming with organic or all natural farming and niche markets,and that's the hardest way that there is to farm. Roundup ready,bT,the genetics in livestock these days,it shouldn't take much effort or input to make yields and profits that our parents and grandparents couldn't even fathom,using the same equipment they used.

 

[Al Baker(pumpman)]

Randy, I have often wondered if a guy with old machinery that is in nice condition and shed kept until needed could make ends meet. He could use the new tec seed and weed control. Lets say you own 300 acres, All iron, land and livestock are debt free. Could you float? Big tractors and combines mean big payments. Big payments mean more acres to service the debt. What if you had no debt? Al

 

[Moonlite37]

I recall in 1958 the first AC D-17 with 16 inch tires and wondered how you could run a 16 inch tire in a 14 inch furrow. I just assumed some excavator would use it to pull scrapers. Neighbor had a Farmall M and I thought it was too big to do much.

 

[ss55]

That would still require a lot of capital. In Western Iowa owning 300 acres free and clear would be worth 300 acres X 6,000/acre = $1,800,000. Add in the investment in machinery and livestock and that is a lot of capital for what is becoming a part time job. Most farm families need one person working an off-farm job to provide health benefits for the family.

 

[Valiant Farmer]

We have several old tractors on our farm, ranging from 24 horse to 40 horse, and we run a large firewood business so we need something strong to pull our 8 cube trucks around the mud in winter. There's not much that our International 383 4WD cant pull, and sometimes we hook up two tractors in tandem, but when you bog the tractor and the truck we have a 17 ton front end loader (for loading trucks) and lots of rope and chain and there's nothing that can resist it when its pulling on the metal track (until one day we bellied the loader...)! Personally my favourite tractor is the Fordson Dexta Diesel!

 

[JD Seller]

Randy That must have been what the neighbor had that cost like $3500 in parts in 1985 to overhaul. I remember doing the work and him talking about what it cost him just for the parts. I just thought the open station would unusually for that big of a tractor. Truthfully I always thought the higher horsepower MMs where ugly as sin.

 

[rrlund]

I'm doing it with fewer acres than that under cultivation. I actually work about 225 tillable. 130 acres of hay,75 acres of corn and 20 acres of oats,seeded to alfalfa. Then I pasture the home 80,about 76-77 acres of actual pasture with the homestead and roads out. If I owned all of the places I farm and they were all contiguous,I'd have way more pasture since the rented places aren't more than half tillable at best.

 

[rrlund]

They made a few of those as Oliver 1355s. I thought those were the toughest looking Olivers ever.

 

[JD Seller]

The trouble is paying for the land while making a living off of it. We can clear around $100-150 an acre after all bills are paid. This is a ten year average profit. Land rents for $250-450 and acre. Right now our rents average $285. The cost to buy that same land is between $10,000 and 13,000 per acre. Not very many people will get an entire farm left to them to farm. The most common would be paying off their siblings. So even then your looking at big numbers per acre.

Local young man just did inherit a 400 acre farm. He is one of six kids. He is paying them 5/6 of $10,000 an acre for the land. That is $8334 per acre times 400, or $3.5 million. Think he can make that payment just farming that ground and his wife working in town???

So lets take the 300 acres some one talked about. So you could make $30-45K off that land. This is your total profit. You would have to pay family living expenses out of that which would need to have a housing cost in it. So if your buying some farm land with a house your land payment would be darn near as much as your total profit. So even IF your wife works off the farm your going to need to generate more income than 300 acres would do. Even then your more than likely be renting all you crop ground forever.

Here is another strange but true fact. The landlords around here are more likely to rent their ground to a larger operation with modern equipment over a fellow using older paid for equipment. Just a fact of life. I do not know if the landlords are equating the tenant's equipment making the landlord look more prosperous or what. Many of them also think that the larger the operation the less likely it is to fail. So they think they are more likely to get paid by the BTO over a smaller farmer. In low priced grain markets that is exactly opposite of the real world numbers but that is how most of them feel.

Up until about 5-6 years ago we ran all older paid for equipment. My sons had issues renting ground for any price. They started to update to modern equipment while growing a larger custom work business. Almost none of this equipment is right off a dealer's lot. We bought equipment that needed repair after fires, building collapsing damage, wrecks, and etc. So we put a lot of sweat equality in this modern equipment. Once they got "newer" equipment they started to get landlords interested in renting to them.

So your going to have to farm a lot of acres to just pay for that "home" farm that maybe only 50 acres, a house, grains bins and equipment sheds.

 

[centash]

And that will be a sad day indeed!
Ben

 

[rrlund]

In Al's question though,he said if you "own" 300 acres. You have to do something to pay for those acres. When I started farming in the early 70s,that meant milking cows. I had most of it paid for when I quit milking. I phased out of the dairy business over two years time and was able to make a fairly seamless transition and had a good income right along. In answer to Al's question though,yes,if you still don't mind having livestock,just don't want to milk,using modern technology as far as genetics are concerned,you can make a living.

Those genetics put added production in your pocket. The only thing new equipment technology does is to reduce input costs. You have to have a pretty high volume of acres to make GPS auto steer,variable rate technology and things like that pay off. Smaller,less advanced equipment might mean a few more days in the field,but isn't that what we do as farmers? What's the need to get done sooner anyway? Those reruns of I Dream of Jeannie will be cycled through again in about a month.

 

[centash]

I'm about in the same boat as Randy.....200 acres in corn wheat and soys, no debt, all the tractors I need is one 85 hp tractor and one 60 hp loader plus field equipment and my own combine.. Always figured if I can't make the equivalent of what renters will pay...about 200 to 250 an acre...I would sell off my old stuff and just rent the land. Would gross about45 000 per year, on which a couple could survive modestly. Now, when my pension kicks in next year....)
Ben

 

[Bruce from Can.]

I have 276 acres that I own and farm. I buy the standing hay off the farm I was raised on, or what?s left of it, as well. Now my farm is a bit like comparing apples with oranges, because I milk cows in Canada. Although many of the comparisons carry across the international boarders of USA and Canada. For instance, the 50+ acres across the road from my home farm sold two weeks ago for over $600,000.00 without a house or a well. No the farm across from my other place with a nice house , and 144 acres is for sale, 2.45 million. Blows my mind !!
My biggest tractors are in the 125 hp range I guess, and I have some old birds from 65 , 85 , and two 100 hp tractors. Like Randy, I am maybe a bit over powered sometimes, and I plough and plant about the same number of acres as Randy.
If I hadn?t been farming for a long time already, with the crazy price tags on farm now, I couldn?t farm here. There is plenty of areas in Ontario, and other provinces that I could buy land for less $$ and still farm much the same as I do now. Two things have created this current land value here. First, we are just over a hours drive to a city of six million people. And people with big money can pay whatever it takes to buy a property, that will allow them to have space, and distance from neighbors, while still being able to slip back to the big smoke.
The second reason for high land price , is once again folks with surplus money, looking for a secure place to park it, as nothing pays a decent return on investment with low interest rates. And a lot of land around is being bought by off shore investors, both companies and individuals. This makes it hard for any local farmers to buy land , and make it pay for its self.
My wife works off the farm, and this really just allows our oldest son to stay on the farm with me.
I also see the processing industry vertically inter grating and becoming the primary producer, as well as the father processor. This way they can control both cost and supply. Independent farmers will be around for a while yet, but will have a tougher and tougher time marketing their products once vertical integration in food becomes more wide spread.
Farming, for an independent farmer will simply become too capital intensive. Who could ever buy 144 acres for 2.45 mill, and ever hope to pay for it growing legal crops ?
New combine for Iowa corn growers, as seen at farm Progress Show last week. 1000 bu bin.

 

[JD Seller]

Randy I think your more profitable with livestock. That is why we have cattle, steers and hogs. The trouble is that takes even more capital. Fill a yard with cattle or a barn with hogs. That is the trouble it takes two life times to earn the capital it takes to just cover the cash flow. My sons also do repair work. Two of them still have full time off farm jobs. I guess it is like always in that it takes a lot of different thing to make a full pie.

 

[rrlund]

I remember when I was about 12,Dad told me that the best way to sell crops is though livestock. He was talking cattle in our case of course. He never was much of a hog guy. I had two uncles who were though. One of the most successful small to mid sized farmers around here gave me some good advice one time too. Everything he raised left the farm through hogs. He told me to get in to something and stay with it through the bad price years and the good,it'll all average out in the end and you'll do well.

I managed to transition from dairy to beef with the same barns except for one. I tried changing the free stall barn over to loose housing,but the barn was already too far gone. We tore that one down and replaced it with a slant roof open sided building. Having my facilities and all of my haying equipment is what keeps me from selling the cattle and going to a corn/bean/wheat/alfalfa rotation. I pick ear corn,chop half and put it in the bunker silo and don't have any grain bins at all. My combine cuts my oats alright,but if I switch to crops,I'd need bins,a truck and a newer combine at bare minimum. I'm not going to make the capital investment to make the switch.

 

[Phil in Pa]

In the early 80's the neighbors I worked for had a Massey 1100 for their big tractor. When they started renting their ground in 78 or 79, the BTO had an 1100 for a spray
tractor only. I started to see the future then.

 

[tractorguy2]

Most of the farmers here are retirement age and are still using tractors from the 70's and 80's. Very few tractors here made after 1998.

What I notice most are the loader tractors. Most had tractors from the 40's and late 30's for there loader. We had a Farmall M NF with no power steering or live power. Here if you had a tractor WITH LIVE HYDRAULICS AND POWER STEERING on your loader tractor you were a very big and rich farmer!

 

[thethresherman]

I was in Antrim County, Northern Ireland in 2015 visiting a cousin. He took me to some acreage he rents out to see them getting ready to do some haylage. I guess I was expecting tractors like Massey Ferguson 240 or even older 65s. Well I was in for a shock. Their equipment was bigger than what we use in northeastern Ohio.

 

[Destroked 450]

The wife and I own 125 acres, 60% is in timber, we tend another 200 of mixed hay and pasture ground.
Our main income is from 3 500 ft poultry barns where we raise chickens for a major food supplier.
We have a 70 head beef cow operation with 50/50 spring/fall calving.
We only raise a few acres of corn that is picked on the ear and ground for feed. Not much money in small acreage grain crops these days. The old 550 massey combine hasn't been out of the barn in 4-5 years since corn prices dropped.
Biggest tractor we have is 72 hp, a good amount of the work is done with 50-60 hp tractors.
We are preparing to fix up a 80 hp tractor to use with the 15 ft batwing mower and also serve as a backup baler tractor.

I can see where grain farmers would need bigger equipment but around here in cow calve operations 70-100 hp tractors do the bulk of the work.

 

[M-MAN]

We don't have large farms here like you. Still see nothing bigger than a 4440 but then again they are dying out quickly. A lot of work is hired out. With the wet year we've had I got to see more old tractors and haying equipment than I've seen in decades because of the short cutting window.

I'll tell you a story about how farming used to be here. An old neighbor I used to have got out of the service in late 1946. He had saved most of his pay while he was there. Paid cash for 400 acres as land was cheap then. In 47 he went to the John Deere dealership and bought a new M with most of the equipment they offered for it. His Dad had to co sign so both farms were on the hook. He ran that little M day and night on his farm and doing custom work for others. It was paid for in one year. The next spring another neighbor asked him about plowing his field and he gave him a price. Feller though he would talk him down cause of all the money he thought he owed. He informed him everything he had was paid for so he could take it or leave it. Those days are gone.

 

[Kansas4010]

I agree with the faster part but maybe not the bigger equipment. They are at the point now that they can barely fit down the road to go from one field to the next. I think you'll eventually see more of those autonomous machines running around. Instead of having one big piece of equipment I think you'll see several of those smaller autonomous machines in a field. Also with big farms being less able to find decent hired hands or paying out paychecks, insurance on those employees or having to deal with employees not showing up and slowing down a harvest. A computer doesn't get the flu or care if it's a holiday or get tired and complain. It either works or it doesn't. That's just my opinion but who knows.

 

[Case Nutty 1660]

Sad but true depending on where you are at. Here there is still a huge market for the 60's and 70's era tractors,, but we do a lot of hay production,, used to be a huge wheat country lack of elevators shut that down to a crawl,, I make a decent living on my 800 plus acres, and run nothing newer than a 1977 tractor, that said not that many here do all of their own repairs like I do,, and with company's today wanting to sell new machines and are dropping parts right and left for the older units I can see the need for buying new,, for me it will never happen. My machines burn less fuel per acre per job than anything you can buy today that would do the same work so for me its a easy choice and I have zero need for and gps steering in both crops and my ability to steer without it lol All I can say for sure is I am Very Glad to be able to farm the same way I grew up doing for me it works, if I had to buy a new tractor or combine it would never pay out here ever not matter how good a banker I have
cnt

 

[JMS/.MN]

I remember overhearing some old farmers talking about who rents their land...ie the BTO. Agreed, they felt like a big shot because of who rented theirs.

 

[mb58]

I can remember in 1970, my older cousin bought a new JD 4020 with a 14' Taylor-Way disk. My Dad and I went over to visit for some reason and we asked him where his father was. He told us that his dad had taken the 4020 over to one of their pastures to break it up for soybeans. He said, "Daddy is so impressed with the 4020's power that I can't hardly get him off of it." He said they had been intending to break up that pasture but the ground was so hard that their old tractor couldn't do it. Their "old" tractor was a 65 Massey with a 7' Bush Hog brand disk. Now someone else works that same field with 12 row equipment.

 

[Spook]

Biggest guy around here uses a JD 48 row planter. Family operation, been in the business a long time. They run all green stuff. That planter probably cost more than my house...

 

[K Effective]

Lots more cooperation between neighbors back then, sharing equipment and facilities. More competition today. Seems many of my Grandparents' generation saw moving off farm to jobs as an upgrade.