Just finished tilling and planting my soybean crop, small acreage, ~32 acres of mine and a neighbor, I farm part-time until I retire, some veggies for road stand people + grain. The other neighbor on our dead end road has 4 acres farmed custom. They came in with a big 8 wheel green monster with transformer style disc + rolling baskets and a week later a 15 row planter that also looked like a robot, did both in about 15 minutes each time. Took me 3 days tilling with a 1980s Ford 7600, 7 tine Warrior chisel plow, 12 ft Kewanee disc and planting with a 1968 Ford 5000 with an 8 row AC 333 frame with #71 planter units, actual on the field time punctuated by maintenance and repairs to the old stuff.
I stopped to watch the new equipment at work, envious at the speed, efficiency and tillage that left the filed smooth and level as a golf course, the operator in the air conditioned cab out of the sun. I thought about this while I was working, and realized I really wouldn't want to trade. Well maybe I could do without changing the seed knockers (who the h*%% came up with that design?), picking up the disc wheel out of the field when the bearings gave out, and the latest mystery as to why the tractor won't start all leading to expletive explosions I was glad no one was around to hear. But it is a different experience. That fellow was tackling a couple thousand acres scattered in the area. I got to focus on my fields and likely had a more thorough awareness of every squeak, whine, leak, and thump coming from the equipment, as well as the subtle changes in soil quality across the fields, take the time to pull that mare's tail I knew would be too big to kill the next week with herbicide. I also wonder about the invested $ per yield ratio, but overall though, I'm lucky enough if I can knock off mortgage payments, whereas he is after his and others in the operation's entire living. We are both going to need some rain soon.
Happy Spring!
I stopped to watch the new equipment at work, envious at the speed, efficiency and tillage that left the filed smooth and level as a golf course, the operator in the air conditioned cab out of the sun. I thought about this while I was working, and realized I really wouldn't want to trade. Well maybe I could do without changing the seed knockers (who the h*%% came up with that design?), picking up the disc wheel out of the field when the bearings gave out, and the latest mystery as to why the tractor won't start all leading to expletive explosions I was glad no one was around to hear. But it is a different experience. That fellow was tackling a couple thousand acres scattered in the area. I got to focus on my fields and likely had a more thorough awareness of every squeak, whine, leak, and thump coming from the equipment, as well as the subtle changes in soil quality across the fields, take the time to pull that mare's tail I knew would be too big to kill the next week with herbicide. I also wonder about the invested $ per yield ratio, but overall though, I'm lucky enough if I can knock off mortgage payments, whereas he is after his and others in the operation's entire living. We are both going to need some rain soon.
Happy Spring!