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9370r

JD offers it with over 500hp now.

Thanks.

Quarter mil+ Used. 😳

I follow the Welker Family on YouTube, and had an epiphany.
Years of being around farms and this had eluded me.

Utilization of farm equipment sucks.
Farms are full of high dollar equipment that is rarely used.
Didn't used to be so bad, all equipment got attatched to the tractor,
and the tractor was used a lot.

But watching Welkers they own 3 big Buds and a Case that's their utility
tractor. A JD that just runs a grain vac.

Those Buds run a lot of hours in 1-2 months.
Then very little to not at all. One is basically a spare.
New, $1,000,000?

When you look at other heavy equipment businesses, many need
the equipment to run 24/7/365 to cover expenses.

Highway equipment got me thinking about this.
Seeing a $300,000 dozer sit beside a road job and only be used
a few hours over the summer. Exactly how much money do we pay
that contractor to cover equipment cost on (necessary) equipment
that only contributes a few hours to the job. They have to charge to cover
payments, even if it isn't running.

Back to farming. How dam much per hour used does a $750,000
tractor cost. Considering there are months that it does nothing.
Not accounting for fuel/maintenance.
Just 12 x payment ÷ hours.

Reminds me. Back in the 1970s in west central Ks, two brothers who were neighbors went on a buying spree of land in our county. Interest was high and they were out bidding everyone for land and buying huge expensive machinery.
My dad wanted to buy some of that land, but his math said that an average crop from that land would not even pay the interest on the loan, let alone pay down part of the principle and make some profit.
Several years later, those two brothers filed for bankruptcy. They kept their homes but lost lots of land and equipment, and ended up in non farm town jobs to put food on the table.
The math is not that complicated and it doesn’t lie.

Bingo!

Lot of good sense/questions there.

The only reason I see for having equipment like that is "deadlines".

If you have 5000 acres to farm, and a narrow window in which you can plant/harvest... etc., it may be about the only way to do so under the deadline.

Of course.

Leasing isn't an option, how could a company have enough self propelled haybines to supply every farm. Or combines. It would put them in the same
situation, only worse.

Can't imagine there is any answer to the problem.
Some farmers will share some of the,
"Would be nice to have" equipment. But that's not the key stuff.
Here, there are a few who maintain a nice harvester, and do custom work
to help with the numbers.

Just through those thought out there to stir others.
See what might percolate, or, if someone else has ran the numbers.

We are small time grain farmers and small/medium size cow farmers.


Hit a good wheat crop last year and the price is up so we might gross $250k on the grain sales.

Hire spraying and combine work.

Our total machinery cost for drilling grain, maybe $50k. Bought a used tractor this year for $60k so we doubled up....lol


We are a LOW budget outfit but only seed 1200 acres of wheat, like I said, small time compared to the likes of the Welkers.

Rack up about 100 hours a year on our big tractor. It sits 50 weeks out of the year....




Cow side we put up most of our own hay and of course use (loader)tractors for feeding.

Total machinery cost(excluding feed pickups), around $300k.

Total hours? A bunch...


Start up a JD loader tractor or two damn near every day.



The guys running high dollar equipment either lease or farm a lot of acres. And it seems they are the first to get into trouble.



Old chit rules!

When you have a big operation, time is of the essence. There is often only a relatively small window of opportunity to put a crop out at the time for optimum yields, and to harvest before the quality of the crop starts going the other way. I have raised enough grain in my day, corn, wheat, and soybeans, to know how important that is. I often did not have the ability to plant and harvest on time, and it cost me.

It's easy for someone who doesn't grain farm to joke about someone having all that big equipment, but until you've been in their shoes, you really have no idea. Sure, they may not use that big stuff but only a few weeks a year, but without it, they could not do what they do.

JamesJr makes good points. There is an economy of scale at work...if you're big enough, you need the reliable, newer, expensive equipment to get the job done.....but you need to be big to have any hope of affording such equipment. When I was farming many years ago, we hired our combining done. Being small farmers, we watched neighbors with 20 year old used combines spend the time they should have been harvesting working on their old equipment. No one wants to hire a job done when, soon, hopefully, their own combine will be back in operation. Saw crops get hailed out while the owner was waiting on parts or working on machinery. We priced out newer, more reliable combines....and the payment was close to our custom harvesting bill. We could usually get custom harvesters when we needed them.