acres per hour

How many acres an hour can I plant with a 13foot drill at say 5 mph? Having a bit of a mathematical brain fart

7.87, if the field is 5 miles long and you never have to turn.

Ok I'm not crazy, that's what I came up with to. Thanx

I used to do "mental math" when I was seeding to find out how many acres I was seeding - but that was 40 some years ago. I'd need a formula book and a calculator to do that nowadays.

I am not the brightest light bulb in the socket, but,I think it works out to about 8 acres. I figured it out by taking the distance traveled in an hour (5mph x 5280ft/mile). This works out to 26400ft traveled in an hour. You are pulling a drill planting a 13ft wide strip of land. This would suggest 343200 square feet of land planted in an hour at your 5mph speed. If I remember right, an acre contains a bit more than 40000 swquare feet. This should work out to a little over 8.5 acres covered. considering headlands and overlap, I would think the actual ground planted might be closer to 8 acres.

MPH/8.25 x width in feet x efficiency in decimal form i.e.-0.80=80%

# acres/hr = 5 mph x 5280 ft/mile x 13 ft all divided by 43, 560 square feet/acre.

Get a calculator and do the math.

Using the old time method of calculation of width X mph divided by 10 = 6.5 acres per hr.

Mathmatically it comes to 7.8 acres per hour without turning or re-loading time. I'll bet your 6.5 is about right on the money. Love those "rules of thumb"!

if it's a large field, you will also have to calculate in re-loading time. this could drop the acres per hour by 20%.

TX Jim has it right.

Tell me, what's wrong with the way I set up the equation? Love to know.

Answer: 8.06 acres, however you can't count the time you are turning, stopping to fill. This is just the time you are going 5 mph.

(quoted from post at 21:17:32 05/16/13) Tell me, what's wrong with the way I set up the equation? Love to know.

Answer: 8.06 acres, however you can't count the time you are turning, stopping to fill. This is just the time you are going 5 mph.

Click to expand...

Calculation method I posted takes in account for body relief,getting drink,filling with seed etc. I'v used this calculation many times and it will get very close to real life.

Lots of variables- what are you seeding (seeding rate...how often you fill), but year in, year out, barley or soybeans, and my fields are large, some quarter, most are a half mile long.....13 foot JD 8300 drill on a 4240....I figure 6 acres per hour. Holds 37 bu per fill.

The way I would figure that is 16.5 feet there are 2 acres to the mile. That's 10 acres @ 5 MPH. Since your 13 ft is about 25% less than 16.5 (more like 30% with lap) I'd guess it at about 7 acres per hour before you subtract refill time. (10 -3) math is easy if you do it in your head. Not so easy on paper. My teachers used to get so upset with me because I did not "show my work"

Forgive me, I didn't know there was an equation for the "P" factor, Coffee, and etc. Won't the "P" factor have to take in to account how much coffee you drink and time of day? I have to stop more often in the AM after having a pot of coffee for breakfast.

George
No forgiveness for you is necessary. The way I posted to calculate the "estimated acres" covered per hr has been around a long,long time and as I stated it's fairly accurate. One thing for sure the older one gets more time is required for breaks.

George,
There's nothing wrong with your calculation. 8 Acres per hour is correct for the maximum or "gross" the machine will cover when it is up and running. The difference is it is nearly impossible to keep a machine productive 100% of the time. The old timer's rule of thumb works out to about 80% effieicency or 80% utilization. So 8 Acres per hour x 0.8 utilization = 6.4 "net" acres per hour. In practice the the old timer's rule at 6.5 is reasonably close for an estimate and it is easy to remember. For a drill that may still be optimistic.

Small simple tillage equipment where you can just "drop and drive" used in long rectangular fields will have the highest utililization maybe approaching 90%. Larger equipment used in irregular shaped fields will have lower utilization.

Planting and harvesting equipment generally has the lowest utilization because they need to be periodically refilled/unloaded or to switch wagons. Also operations where a good operator neeeds to regularly stop and check how well he's doing the job, make adjustments for the conditions and then recheck after adjustment are made further reduces utilization. That downtime is time well spent, but it hurts utilization. Plannting and harvesting equipment will have lower utilizatation of 70%, 60% maybe as low as only 50% if you must refill/unload from one corner of a long field.

8 acres per hour "gross" capacity is good to used in the dealer's showroom and in the coffee shop. 6.5 is a more practice "net" capacity for planning and that may still be a bit too high for a drill.

Mike,
You might like my dad's 1960's observation on new equipment prices.

The weight of a piece of new farm equipment in pounds
X
the price per pound of a good steak in the grocery store
=
A ballpark estimate of the list price of cost of that piece of equipment. This was always a little low for combines.

I think the acres per hour is determined by if you're getting paid by the job or if you're getting paid by the hour.

5 miles X 5,280' X 13'/43560= 7.87 acres/hr, if you are planting in a straight line, with no turns. What do I win??