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Aberdeen MS |
Compared to last year I have (oops...went back through my previous post and I fibbed.. I stand corrected). I tallied my fuel costs last year per field and per acre. $4,000 for me isn't chump change. I treat marketing seperate from growing the crop. To me they are 2 entities. I guess one could say I increased my profitability by $4,000.
If you go back around the 27 or 28th of June, I posted what my savings are/will be by stripping. The following is what I posted just on fuel.
In the fall of 05 my corn ground fall tillage fuel costs alone were $8.50/ac. That was shred stalks and then rip with a 527 DMI Ecol Tiger. Spring till was a pass with a FC followed by a pass with a multiweeder for a better seed bed. Those two passes ran up another $3.00 or so in fuel costs. For the equipment I have/had from the time the combine left the field in the fall until the planter pulled in the field I had 4 trips and $11.00 an acre in fuel. Stripping with a Dawn unit, I used .41 gal/acre @ $2.50 equals $1.03 Right around a $10.00 per savings, splitting the 575 acres in half (just using *even* numbers) 285 acres. $2850 fuel savings on corn going to beans per year. Bean ground going to corn the following year was a disk or FC pass in the fall plus a FC and multiweed pass in the spring. $5.00 in fuel per acre vs $1.03. Round numbers... savings $4.00. On 285 acres another $1140 in savings. Total fuel savings $3990.... rounding lets say $4000 per year in savings.
For myself, farming "here" didn't change that much in the last 10 years (when I took over the farm.. unfortunately it was the work load and input decisions as long as I still "farmed" the ground the "right way" according to my dad, which was 2 fall trips and a minimum of 2 spring trips, sometimes he demanded I do 3 spring trips). My fuel gallons per year the last 5 years didn't change much at all. Until this year when I started stripping.
I went out and pick a few ears today. One was 16 X 38 and one was 18 X 34. 102 day corn planted on 4/27 virtually no firing of the plant and checking several differant areas 30 - 31,000 standing. That was on strips... fertility applied... 140 units N 10 of S and 5 of Zn, broadcast as urea 3 days before a rain on on 4/11 with no incorporation. That field is in the EQUIP program and I have to follow U of MN recs to the T or lose payment. Soil tests are high enough that for a 175 bu/ac yield goal, that's all they let me put down. | |
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Reduced Rates of Fertilizer - In reference to Ron's posts
