Light Land

Yards looking good Alex  , The UK must spend a mint drying grain with your climate/seasons.  

You'll be hoping the world isn't a wash in feed wheat for much longer with it being your key crop?

With all due respect I find this a pretty silly statement (no matter who says it). If you lease a tractor it is in your books therefore you own it. Stacking up the figures in most cases rental or lease works out better. Rather than shouting I OWN a tractor I would focus on what costs me per hour.

 

@Alex: Fair enough, spoiled drivers you have . And @Paul I reckon these tests will be done behind closed curtains

 

A side line question: What do people find a normal price per hour for a tractor? Over here it used to be €10 (£9) per hour. If you could swap your tractor for a new one and stick to the 10 Euro rule you'd generally did a good job. However, with price increases in recent years, it has gone more towards €15-20/hr! Making it uneconomical to change every 3 tot 5 years.

 

To add a little to the Fendt debate, two farming friends of mine recently purchased new tractors. The first compared a JD 6170R to a Fendt 720 spec for spec. The Deere was €17k cheaper. He then looked at resale values of a 7530 compared to a Fendt 820. This was €20k, therefore deciding to tie up his capital in the Fendt. Friend number two specced up a new Fendt 724 S4 and NH T7.270 BP. The price difference being €12K! I was flabbergasted. Bought the Fendt, somewhat needless to say.

Often 50 pence per clock hour per horsepower. Your right,it's all about cost of ownership. 

No demos and 6mths waiting for our bespoke replacement of the 6470 made it to the farm this week.

6600 series running trimble RTK guidance getting worn in chipping a grass seed paddock.

Looked a heck of a bit of kit hey.

Leaping deere dealer will be hacked off at you having other demos about the traps after pulling the pin on 2 of there own. I'm pretty sure if you don't buy the demo after having it for a bit you pay for the hours you put on it here, same there is it? 

Did you see that big yellow (agco?) self propelled muck spreader on flea bay, would be at home on your layout. 

22 loads is a fair haul of wheat, don't farmers carry grain over in England if the price is low?

Nice looking Fendt, who makes that model?

Good see you about ftf Gav. Beat the puma sounded good.

Nice soil the plough is parked on Julian, just sand is it?

Interesting video certainly! Well put together and interesting to hear their thoughts. I think if there was an Oakley Farms video it would probably be nearly the same? Except for potatoes.

 

Same here Alex. Even farms half that size are likely to have much more crops. By focussing on cereals and rape it does make life a whole lot easier. You can combine large scale farming (anything over 300ha IMO) with a more intensive cropping but it will require a LOT more work, machinery, investment etc.. You won't be able to focus as well on a certain crop or subject. I notice this as I travel round in my country speaking to farmers. However, when it comes to things like weed control, income, soil fertility etc.. I think more crops definitely has the edge.

  Your on the money there,agree.  

An interesting clip Alex, I see what your trying too portray your layout as better now.

Makes for quite a contrast were it's no uncommon to have 5-10 kinds of crops   packed on 250ha (ish) of land in areas here.

Sulky spreaders popular there Julain? We've a real one like that model and really like it.

I don't get the Single Farm Payment thing, when your not farming the land yourself but in more or lease words have rented out the farm and all control over it in some cases but they are still clipping the ticket and taking the payment.?

I'm not going to pick holes in your good work, I don't know enough about England to compare really. I'll have to come and have a look one day   

Being a perfectionist is like growing maize imo, starts off meaning well but ends up a mess more often than not. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is perfection is hard to make practical and profitable exp in years of poor prices in the real world exp when your under pressure from people/banks who want a return or worse still want there money back.

We have a saying here " profitability is sanity production is vanity" implying the last tonne of grain often costs more to get than it's worth. 

All systems go at Oakley, always nice to see whats happening even if I don't understand/agree with bits of it good on you for keeping the topic going.

Bit of typing there Alex, thank you. It sounds ok in theory.

So Alex................I've 180ha in Somerset. I Claydon drill purple wheat,osr and grow a few dry peas and abit of barley and rent land out for a root crop of some kind to give the ground a good stir up once in a blue moon. The farm is a one man band in fact I work part time and have my wife/friends help me at harvest time.

Assuming I'm servicing my debt and run a modest fleet with just 1 tractor and an older combine why would I let Oakley take over my land ? 

I'm to young to do nothing and the local flour mill that takes my wheat every year is happy with my product and pay a bit more for purple wheat so wouldn't want me to pull out. The veggie man is much the same and takes a paddock of his pick every year the rest of the crops just fill in the land really and help control weeds.

Good up date Alex, just relooked over a few pages with my wife who was most impressed.

Taking my model tractors from the display cabinets & putting them back in their boxes. The room where I have them displayed  needs to be converted to a new bedroom. So the models are heading up to the attic for a while,  

baby on the way Justin?

You'd just run with a few boom sections off or the like wouldn't you since barley is such a sod for regrowth if you go off the tramlines.

Interesting reading. I get more out of seeing what other parts of the world are doing than what tractors they have,thanks.

Is it common by you too be doing so many types of farming like your layout depicts?  

I don't see such diversity here in NZ any more on one farm as it's not economical (here) hence why I ask out of curiosity. 

You'd hold half of Canada's wheat in that place! 

Good to have an update Alex, I always read them at lunch time.

The capital behind Oakley is incredible. 

nice picture of your neighbour drilling kale ol we could do with some of that dust over here at moment as while I was away over weekend we had 31mm of rain and another 11mm last night so will not be spraying the rape this week as more rain is forecast

Yer it's one extreme or the next, that rapid made a mess last year when drilling in the wet.