What happened to pride and doing a good job?

[smalltimer]

Hi everyone sorry to start a rant here but what happened to farmers having pride in the job they do? I personally do not farm would love to but financially it would cut my throat. My grandfather farmed till around 85 and my uncle took over till the mid 90's when he got out of it because of health and having to work in town too with not much time for his family. The equipment they had when they retired/got out of farming was john deere 2030d, 4020d, 4630 and an ih 1466. A 6600 jd combine and 2 single axle chevy grain trucks. Since then my grandmother has rented the ground to 2 local farmers with my grandfather gone quite a few years now. The guys who rent our ground that i help when i can always joke about the old obsolete equipment my family had and how my family never the ran the air conditioner in the one tractor that had a cab (the4630). They always get quite a big laugh out of that. I guess this year was just the straw that broke this camels back when I saw the job they did cutting our beans and ripping this fall. To start they ripped 6 inches deep with their big ford or versatile four wheel drive Whats the point of doing it? You could disc that deep pretty well Then 2 to 3 weeks later after it was ripped low and behold there are green sprouts in the field. At first I thought it was weeds then when I got out there nope its all soybeans that where blown out the back of the machine!! I mean the field looked like it had been planted got a hard rain on it and rotary hoed thats how many beens were sprouting. Oh btw we don't have a cash rent deal its on shares. With them alway laughing about the old obsolete equipment my family used we never had a field that looked that crappy ever when my grandpa and uncle farmed. I mean all this new technology thats supose to be efficient and wonderful and putting i would guess at least 3 to 4 bushel to the acre out the back who should be laughing at who? Sorry to rant but it just makes my blood boil seeing and hearing this kind of crap.

Thanks for your time and opions

smalltimer

 

[Lumpie]

Most people have very little common sense anymore. They're too reliant on technology to tell them what and how to do anything anymore. Back in the day you would get to the endrows, pull up to the wagons, and while it was unloading you would get out, walk around the machine checking it out, and check to see if the machine is adjusted properly. Now they just dump on the fly and go through a couple hundred acres before they ever crawl out of the cab. And the fact they just run the machines as hard and fast as they can go without regard to what's flying off the head or out the back, just as long as they get done as fast as possible to get to Canada to go fishing, or get back on the golf course.

 

[paul]

Don't know where you are located.

I still farm my farm with equipment like you mention, air went out on the 2 cab tractors years ago, just fixed the air in the combine last year - the dust gets pretty bad, started thinking about my lungs.

This was a different year, soybeans were 18% moisture one day, 3 days later we had hot dry constant winds and they were all under 9%, got down to 7% moisture by the time one could catch up with getting them combined.

Lot of header loss, has nothing to do with the combine settings. Pods pop when they get touched.

Tillage and what we are supposed to do changes a lot over the past 20 years. I often do not work the bean ground in fall at all any more. Again this year, the fall was very odd - the clay ground dried out hard and super dry, couldn't get a plow into the ground, chisel plowed ground worked up _very_ rough, basketball sized clods. Some are not very happy with those results, my neighbor came out with an old field cultivator and worked up the soybean ground lightly - he had 350 hp tractor on the field cultivator, took it to get that hard ground worked up lightly.

So, I'm not ready to cast stones at your renters. Can be good reasons for how things turned out.

If it were easy, everyone would farm. If you own the land, easy enough for you to buy a tractor & some equipment & show them up, do it better yourself. It's easy to judge from the sidelines. Put some skin in the game if you don't like it the way it is.

--->Paul

 

[smalltimer]

This year in my area was not at all like you were saying as far as dryness. Just so there was proof I looked at other peoples ground too. Some were the same as ours and others had no regrowth or very minimal. As far as putting skin in the game I do work for them and know how they operate its usually the same every just usually not that bad with beans corn is a different story a week after they shell the field turns green again. They do not stop to check their equipment I know for a fact cause I drive trucks for them in corn and watch them out in the field when i'm not helping them and maybe once a week they walk behind the combine for five minutes at start up. All i"m saying is they make fun of people like you with your obsolete equipment that all it can do is pull a float in a parade or run an auger (their words not mine) and do a worse job than the small time operators with this almost new equipment. The guy across the road didn"t have much to any regrowth from loss at the combine and he also worked ground a lot deeper. When you make a third of a pass on your first pass and say the tractor is pulling to hard rpm wise and shift down a gear or and lift your ripper out a few stops thats bull! And then go to some elses ground and set it deeper and pull the guts out of the tractor sounds to me like that person doesn"t care about our ground. Also when their nephew/ grandson comlains about having to work on saturday when all he does is help his grandfather / uncle on the farm doesn"t go to college or have another job in town like I do working 12 hour nights and then turn around and help them for 8 hours don"t come to me for sympathy. Your right to you not being at my place seeing how they do it doesn"t look bad to someone who is in the game in my area like me it does.

 

[smalltimer]

What I meant when I was talking about the ripper Is they make a third of a pass in the first field they worked (which was our ground)say the rpms are pulling down to much and stop and add a depth stop or two but dont attempt to shift down a gear. Running 2 nd gear second range on the tractor runing about 6 to 7 mph. But then throw it in the ground real deep on all the other landlords ground. I checked by probing the ground to see how deep it was worked and also because I was running the tractor part of the time too.

 

[sixtyninegmc]

Sounds to me like they have given you good reason to look for another tenant to work the ground, if you are doing shares with them. You have a stake in how good of work they do, and it sounds like you know enough about farming to call them on it. Better yet, you still have the 4020, correct? Start picking up implements while you let them work the ground, gives you time to get setup without having to work the ground yet. If it bugs you this much, it is time to change something.

 

[LeonardWD45]

Smalltimer, I'm like you. All the equipment I have is old, from the 40's and 50's. I live over 300 miles away from the farm and am able to get there more often from April through October. Dad had the land leased to a horse hay farmer for about 10 years and they did nothing to the land. After a soil test this last spring I have to put down about $1500 in fertilizer to bring the 30 acres back into shape. Finally convinced dad to terminate the lease and let me take over. Will take at least this a year to do this but will finally be able to make enough to at least pay the taxes and hopefully the operating expenses. I truly feel for you and agree with you.

Leonard

 

[Anonymous-0]

lots of ambitious/greedy farmers still out and about, find a different one to farm the ground, perhaps the guy across the road.

 

[greenbeanman in Kansas]

I think a lot of the beans on the ground comes from combine drivers rather than operators. Doubt too many even know how to properly set their machine for maximum crop in the bin rather than getting over the acres quickly.

I wonder how many crawl around on their hands and knees in the chaff behind a combine when first setting it each harvest because of the changed conditions from the prior year. Do they also do that as conditions change?

I remember our first 21A Massey Harris and the sound of wheat hitting the cab of the truck as the combine would pass by.

I never did get but very little volunteer wheat while some farmers that used customer cutters had nearly solid green stripes in their fields, especially noticeable before choppers became so popular. I'd rather have it in the bin to sell than to pasture.

 

[The Bachelor]

Sometimes, things just happen.... The things you describe are what happened to me this year. Fall plowing ended up 6 to 8 inches due to conditions and equipment breakdowns. Green fields due to the ol combine doesn"t handle barley well.... They"ll freeze off though....

As far as ribbing..... I have to have thick skin chiselin with an ol 820 and rakin hay with a B. I don"t let it get to me..... When we"re poppin a top in the evenin, the new equipment guys are gettin on each other pretty good about the color of their stuff too......

 

[dixon boy RL]

thats nothing unusual to see couple neighbors i have its that way every year. across the road another fellows you never hardly see that. years do make difference but majority of time its machine setting. been their done that for several years the farming game. you have 3 simple choices DO IT YOURSELF,CASH RENT THE FARM GET THE SAME NO MATTER WHATS LEFT IN FIELD,OR TRY ANOTHER TENANT.

 

[Animal]

I read your post and had gone into the other room, but I had to turn around and reply to this as it hits close to home. Every thing I farm with is recycled junk, but it works. When I first started farming I hired my combining done for two years. The first year was corn. When he got done I put an add in the KC star that I had squirrel corn for sale five cents an ear u pick it in the field. I think on seven acres I made around three hundred dollars. I was on forty inch centers the combine was on thirty I found out. The following year was beans, I questioned the operator about my bean loss, and the reply was don't you have insurance? The following year I bought a 3300 J.D. combine which I still use. These fellas, and by the way some are good friends of mine that are farming so many acres that to my way of thinking can not do it right, would be up sh1t creek without insurance and govt. programs. Do not misunderstand me I think these programs are great if they are not abused, but thats a whole kettle of fish on its own. All this being said, I have to agree with the others on a cash rent...

 

[Anonymous-0]

I guess I will add to my earlier response, I happen to know just about what every field in my county is combined with and im being 100% honest when I tell you the ones with the most volunteer corn and and resprouted beans are the ones harvested with newer JD combines. Dont get me wrong I cant say that newer JD combines arent good (I dont own one I have a 6620, I hope your buddies dont make fun of me). It just seems like the farms that are large enough to run one of those things are always running at full blast which by the way doesnt mean most efficient. When I talk to guys with old Gleaners and what not they have 100 different tricks on how to get those things to purr, I doubt there are alot of tricks to a 9760 except to turn it on a roll. Facts are in my combine if I go as fast as these other guys I can watch ears fly off the header just from the snout contact. I harvested 296 acres of corn this year at my usual pace, Imagine if I had to cover 2000 acres, I might speed up. I dont think for a second that large farms are efficient or sustainable. I think that you need to find new farmers or do it yourself, also a 4630 and 1466 are still great tractors in my opinion I dont have much of anything newer than those.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Our corn was run by a 9770 running 612C head at 2.7 to 3.4 mph,corn coming out at 22%.The farm is farmed by our tenant. Those machines can be adjusted and ran so that there is no crop loss. I walked over a bunch and you could not find a kernel or ear of corn anywhere. Don't give a hoot about paint color, our guys just take the harvest serious, know they are not fiddling around. There is a lot at stake if your operator is losing 30-40 dollars crop per acre.Since our operator unloads on the run non-stop, he knows the ground needs deep ripped to get at compaction. It is all ripped at least 2"-3" deeper than old plow pan. Your guy sounds like he could be running too fast ground speed. Would talk to your guy express some dissatisfaction w/ crop loss and if things continue would switch tenants. Too much at stake to have a farm operated like that unless it is a first time occurrence, or weather related foible.

 

[smalltimer]

thanks everyone. And Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[Reid1650]

Id say give them final notice, probably too late for next year, but for 2013 that they wont be farming it. You have all the equipment you need short of the combine. I am 22 and farm about 200 acres of grain and 400-500 acres of rolled hay a year. The big time operators for the most part do not care about peoples ground and will do anything they can to make money. There are bigger farmers "here" who have been caught in groups for insurance fraud (working together), stealing peoples cattle, screwing people on share cropping. They are out of control. It is very hard for a young, honest farmers to even pick up another hundred acres because the bto's will pay so much per acre but not take care of it. I wish land owners would wise up and wake up some. Sorry this is a rant. If I were you I would tell them to leave and never come back. Sounds like a "real good bunch" (sarcasm).

 

[Anonymous-0]

Well farm it. No one is getting their throat cut right now. You could easily make a nice part time income. The nice thing is that with todays used equipment you could get that same line of equipment your uncle and grandpa had for about 25,000 at the most. I put myself in part time by buying used 1970's equipment and taking a slight calculated risk. I cash rent all the ground and run junk equipment. Hardest part was the operating loan, but you can't expect to walk in and get the money to put out 200 acres the first year, start small and work your way up.