My First Farming Oppertunity!!

Well, I was just down talking with the neighbor, and he told me that he wanted to "restore" his grandfathers hay meadows, back to working order.

I told him that if he were to go through and pull the trees out (no bigger than 4 inch) that it probably wouldn't be that hard to get the 3 fields back in order.

He asked me if I would be willing to farm it, and what I thought it would cost!! Basically, I told him, you want a nice meadow, I want to farm, if I went and footed all of the money/costs/labor/machinery, and did all of the farming, I would keep and sell all of the hay, and you would get your nice looking meadows. He said that would be fine (he is very rich, so money isn't really a problem!)

There are 3 fields, and together they MIGHT be 20 acres. I told him that in the fall I could plow it all under, and disc it, and then disc/harrow/seed in the spring. He thought that it would be pretty cool to put oats in the first year, and then let them go back to natural hay meadows after that!!

Soooo, where do I start? I told him I would look into costs, such as how much of what kind of seed would I need? What would I do (if any) for fertilizer? What does a 80lb bale sell for? How many bales would I get? Could I actually turn a profit? Basically, I was just hoping you guys could maybe tell me where to start, and give some good info!! Bryce

Small square bales weigh more like40-50lb. not 80lb. Good hay without rain stored inside, with no dust, will easy bring $6-$7 per bale. If it gets rained on , get it round baled, and sell to beef farmers at what ever the market will bare. Good luck, and have some fun! Bruce

Price has everything to do with location. Right now around my place in michigan it's bringing $4-$5. Craigslist is a good price guide or any local auctions. 80lbs does sound on the heavy side. I weighed some of mine last year and they averaged 60lbs. That's mostly alfalfa. After the oats is he going to let you seed it into another type of hay or is that where the road ends?

It is great to see someone get a start.I rented my first 30 acers the year I got out of school.I would recomend that you go in and spray roundup and 2-4D a month before you fall plow.This cleans up the feild and allows for a better plowing job.Get a soil test as well if you are planning on clover or alfalfa in the seed mix you may need lime and this much better if fall applied.If lots of lime is needed apply half before plowing then the rest after.Lime is very important as it makes the plants healthy and inables fertlizer and spry to work better.Plant your oats as early as possible in the spring as they prefer cool weather.Try to find a short varity because if they go down they can be very hard on the underneath seeding.I farm high fertility soils so we prefer to harvest the oats as silage or balage to prevent seeding damage.Do you have a combine or can you hire it done? My area is all big farmers and getting someone to cut small grain can be a problem.Depending on where you are located the straw can be very valuable as well.Good luck Tom

I would tell him to shove his fields where the sun doesn't shine. I have been down the road you're taking too many times. Pull the trees, mow the weeds, plow fit and level the fields, plant it to some thing worth growing, haul manure, put on fertilizer and then,,,, and then,,, it's sorry, your done. I am bitter, but thats the way it has happened for me. Even under a written contract it didn't work. The "rich" guy knew how to get out of it.

Don't know your altitude there but I am same latitude and I gross about 600/A on alfalfa/OC grass, selling a lot in the field for $4.Some shedded for 5.50 later in the winter. Net is close to $500.
Best you talk to some hay farmers in YOUR neighborhood.
If you stay with grass hay only, all you need is a 9 ft sickle mower, a side delivery rake, and a baler. You can get pretty good examples of all three of those for a total of $5K.
Have a neighbor plant it for you.

My gosh! I just called the local Coop, the guy said that he had a really nice Alfalfa Timothy mix, and he thought that would be the best choice for my area.

He did some quick math, and said the if I was going to do 20 acres, it takes 10lbs per 1000 square feet, and he said it was $5 lb, he quoted me "about $42,000" !!!!!! That is WAAAAAAYYYYYY more than I thought it would be?!?! Is that right?!?!

On another note, I would be using a John Deere No. 5 7foot sickle mower, JD 594 Side delivery rake, and a _________ baler (need to find a good working one, or get on of mine fixed!)

Bryce

I'd put some ryegrass or something on it this fall. Cut and bale in spring, in time to put something else in.

Don't know your soils but lime is not always needed. Here we put sulfur in the ground. We're too alkaline. The closer you can keep your Ph to neutral the more it frees up the nutrients for your plants.

You will get it in order and then be put off the land. In the nnalert environment land owners are greedier than anything you can imagine and anything they feel like doing is apparently right. Better to do the work for him and send him the bill if that could work.

Something is wrong with what you said. 10 to 15 pounds of alfalfa seed per ACRE plus a few pounds of grass seed per ACRE is on par but many growers tweek those rates to suit their needs. When I bought a bag of alfalfa seed a few years ago it was 250 dollars for a 50 lb bag of which the seed had specific treatments and traits. The soil fertility and PH need to be looked at and that could mean additional expenses of 50 to 100 dollars an ACRE or more. Drainage? Alfalfa will not persist in wet conditions especially if there is standing water part of the year. If highly wet drainage could run a few hundred dollars per acre but there will be a need to investigate practicality as you may have a situation where an outlet for the artificial drainage may not exist. Drainage can be circumvented somewhat if you go with species that will grow under wet condition but then you have to look at marketability of crops such as Red Clover, Timothy, Reed Canary Grass in your area.

Given where you are you will need a combination mower and conditioner although there are the old pre-1960 conditioners out there and they are also being made new albeit by shortline manufacturers. Despite many crop guys chucking their hay equipment the last few years old equipment such as New Holland 461 haybines are bringing the better part of a thousand dollars and same era (1960's) 69 or 270 balers are bringing the same kind of money. You will need a tedder (another 1000 plus dollars) some rake to combine windrows (maybe, possibly under 500 bucks if it does not have to say New Holland on the side of it), Flat rack wagons with old 6 ton gears 5 to 700 dollars a piece or kicker wagons with similar gears a thousand a piece. Good hay around here means three tons per acre yield and good second cutting can mean nearly two tons per acre. A good season means pulling 5, 6 or more tons per acre. In heavy hay with older smaller equipment I would want at least one 50 horsepower tractor that has some chassis weight (no 3 year old compact) to hold itself plus machinery on hills. When we baled a lot of hay and wheat straw the JD 4010 (1963 vintage) ran the 347 baler and in heavy hay that tractor grunted in 4th gear. A good 50 horsepower tractor (1960's vintage should be doable for 5000 dollar or less depending on model and condition.
A lot of things to be thought over on this. As somebody else said you could do all the preliminary work on this then get kicked to the curb if your landlord is not very ethical.

When I mentioned good hay at three tons per acre I should have specified for the FIRST cutting alone. Sorry.

I would:
1. Get a soil test (tell them you plan on sowing alfalfa so they give you those recommendations)
2. Follow the lime and fertilizer recommendations
3. Plant about 15 lbs of alfalfa per acre.
4. Orchard Grass works well in my area for a grass mix.....Iowa
5. Have at least a five year contract and if he cancels/breaks it, he pays for seed, fuel, and the rest of your expenses to establish the stand. (you will need 5 to make some decent money)
6. Horses in your area? More grass needed in the mix. (Horse owners are a PITA to sell to)

Good alfalfa, (for 4 year stand) will cost around $300 per 50 lb bag. A bag will do a bit more than 3 acres at 15 lb per ac. This means that you will have around $2000 in the alfalfa seed. Orchard grass and oats are not too expensive but don't know about the cost lime in your area. Hopefully, you wont need to lime.

Better talk to someone else for your advice. Sounds like this guy is giving you seed rates for recreational fields and such. Sonewhere in the neighborhood of 15 lbs of grass seed mix per acre would be more like it. We used to use around 15 lb.s per acre of the grass/legume mix per acre, with or without oats as a cover crop. Make sure you have a market for alfalfa that will make it worth the extra cost. The way most farmers manage grass hay these days, alfalfa isn't the big deal around here it was 30-40 years ago. Every stinkin' bug in the western hemisphere considers alfalfa numero uno on their lunch list.

I am happy to see a young man so anxious to begin, but honestly if you cannot spell 'opportunity' you need to finish your education first. You have all your life to work/farm but in reality the window to get your education is fairly short. When you are 30 years old and need to find work, if you have on your resume that you are 'looking for an oppertunity' you will find most doors will be closed to you.

Do not give up your dream! But get a good education before you tear into life full time.

Not going to make much money but you will be farming yourself and that's worth a lot in itself. Plus it opens up opportunities in the future, you've got to start small and take chances as they come. I've reclaimed 30+ acres that way. Make sure there aren't any low areas as old grass fields tend to hide places to get stuck. My best advice would be to see if you can custom hire someone with a baler, give them a quarter of the hay, and you do the mowing, raking and all else. That way it won't be overwhelming the first year if you have any breakdowns with the other equipment. Spray with Roundup 10 days before you fall plow/disk, co-op will custom do it for you if you don't have a sprayer, ought to be around $15/acre. If you can custom hire the co-op to then put down a little fertilizer they can broadcast the seed with it, then you cultipack it. Do all this early fall. Maybe have them spread 100 lbs acre fertilizer with 25 lbs of pasture mix seed ought to cost around $50/acre for the fertilizer and $100/acre for the seed but remember that you spread that cost over several years when figuring your budget as you obviously won't have to replant for several years. I'm not sure about the oats. Don't get carried away with the fertilizer, this isn't a high production high fertilization type of scenario, just a little to help get started and that way the co-op can spread/seed for you. By the time you figure your machinery, fuel, seed, fertilizer and baling cost you won't make a lot, but figure maybe 75 50 lb. bales per acre starting out and sell them for $3 to $4 depending on how good they are. You may make a lot more than 75 bales/acre but start out conservatively and that way you may be happily surprised but you can't figure on a bunch of profit. Make sure that the neighbor understands you are putting a multi-year investment in by seeding hay and that you need to farm it for a few years to get your money out of the seeding. Might get something in writing that you have the first right to farm it the next few years and under what terms, but that if you don't want to continue you can give him adequate notice so he can find another farmer. I highly recommend having an experienced farmer "bale" for you at first, as I stated you mow/rake/everything else. But if you choose to do that make sure you can trust him to get to you when the time is right and communicate with him.

(quoted from post at 19:47:46 06/21/14)
I am happy to see a young man so anxious to begin, but honestly if you cannot spell 'opportunity' you need to finish your education first. You have all your life to work/farm but in reality the window to get your education is fairly short. When you are 30 years old and need to find work, if you have on your resume that you are 'looking for an oppertunity' you will find most doors will be closed to you.

Do not give up your dream! [b:6670728c40][i:6670728c40][size=18:6670728c40]But[/b:6670728c40][/i:6670728c40][/size:6670728c40] get a good education before you tear into life full time.

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If you are giving out English lessons, you should include the one about not starting sentences with a conjunction.

Brice,I don't want to throw a monkey wrench in your farming plans but be careful of dealing with rich guys cause they got their own agenda and when it comes to taking profit it may not include you. There's a reason they got rich, and it ain't philantropy that got them there.
I trusted a few of them in my lifetime and got stung pretty good each time.
Nowadays i'll trust someone only as long as it stays under 1 dollar.

my 2c