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high plains

B

Brian806

Member
Anybody farm on here in the high plains! I really liked it out thier this past fall! Can anyone tell me what it's like farming out thier!
 
As Lazy WP said, you really need to define what you mean. High plains is what I would call a misnomer.

Kind of like in the computer world of being "in the cloud".
 
I consider ND, SD, and eastern Montana the high plains, farming here is pretty much like anywhere else, when it rains it is good, dry not so good. not too many hills, not much firewood, some huge rocks. Lots of small rocks left by glacier melting. Farms range in size from a couple hundred acres to 150 thousand acres. In most cases, a small tractor would be 70 to a hundred hp.

Dick ND
 
My former secretary and hubby moved to norwestern Nort Dakota- they found a rental house on a farm; son farms, mom owns it- 3 or 4,000 acres, I think. She has a bunch of oil leases, has money up to the FDIC limit in every bank within 50 miles. Son says he just gets used to one tractor or combine, and she makes him buy a new one.

Farming is tough on the high plains, I guess.
 
I grew up in the the Sandhills of Nebraska. Farmed in Colorado around where the airport is now east of Denver right out of high school, and now am running a ranch in the Sandhills again.
You have to enjoy driving. Closest grocery store is 40 miles, and we are "close"to town.
 
We came through the sand hills in Nebraska but we came through mostly at night and found out yea it was a ways to motel!Haha but it was nice!
 
Towns are about 30 miles apart on average, a lot of older people, especially in the smaller towns, wages are low , land prices are high right now.Average Western KS farm would be 2000 to 3000 acres.,Lots of wind with little rain and snow, Banks are hard to deal with if you are from out of the area.Ground is easy to farm, no rocks, no trees to go around.
 
Usually called the Great Plains these days. I'd say anything east of the Rockies and over two thousand feet elevation would be in the High Plains.
 
One word: DRY

I grew up in northeastern Colorado where our family farmed. I still own a little property out there. Modern no-till farming has made huge improvements over how we farmed dryland back in the seventies. We could only get a crop every other year. You "summer fallowed" the off years, tilling the soil enough to keep weeds under control. Nowadays they "chemical fallow", using herbicides to control weeds without losing moisture. No-till farmers can get two crops every three years.

There was a lot of irrigation in the seventies, but depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer is forcing the shutdown of wells. I can't imagine there will be any irrigation twenty years from now.

As farms get bigger and bigger, the population is dwindling. It's not uncommon for folks to drive ninety miles for groceries. Farmland prices are high, making it nearly impossible to get into farming if your family doesn't already own land. Much of the employment these days is in the oil and gas fields.
 
25 inches average annual rainfall.
Southwest Nebraska. Growing more with less water than anyone else.
I only miss rocks when it rains.
Don't miss snow.
I hate the wind though.
 
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