The Good Life v.farming

Turbocharged400sbc

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I'm kind of wondering if dear is panicking a little bit while the right to repair crowd is actually engineering their own tractor interface and GPS steer systems using open-source software and microcontrollers.

"Raspberry Pi - Python Based GPS System | The Farming Forum" https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/raspberry-pi-python-based-gps-system.324535/

"Autosteer for tractors - Reach / Reach RS+ / RS2 / Project share - Community Forum" https://community.emlid.com/t/autosteer-for-tractors/21901
 

Stink Star

Don’t Drive Angry!
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Things I’ve always wondered about farming:

assuming no livestock, what do farmers do all winter?
after crops are planted what is a typical day for a farmer? Just check water and for pests/diseases?

it just totally seems like it’s one of those jobs that when it’s time to work, the work is 24 hours nonstop.


edit: I’m totally not trying to throw shade here asking this stuff, it’s genuinely interesting. I reread my comments and thought they could be taken the wrong way but I don’t mean anything bad by them
 
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GTPpower

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How many acres do you have?

Family on my dad's side farm's in WI. corn and cow. And every few years we go up there for a BBQ they say how cut throat it is, and how the state tries to fuck them over on taxes.

We farm right around 500. About 350 of that is owned, and 150 is rented.
 

GTPpower

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I'm kind of wondering if dear is panicking a little bit while the right to repair crowd is actually engineering their own tractor interface and GPS steer systems using open-source software and microcontrollers.

"Raspberry Pi - Python Based GPS System | The Farming Forum" https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/raspberry-pi-python-based-gps-system.324535/

"Autosteer for tractors - Reach / Reach RS+ / RS2 / Project share - Community Forum" https://community.emlid.com/t/autosteer-for-tractors/21901

I doubt it yet at this point. The aftermarket solutions can't control what deere software and hardware can. There are a couple aftermarket companies such as Ag Leader, Trimble, Raven, that have nice setups and are cheaper than Deere, but even they can't do everything that some farmers need.
 
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GTPpower

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Things I’ve always wondered about farming:

assuming no livestock, what do farmers do all winter?
after crops are planted what is a typical day for a farmer? Just check water and for pests/diseases?

it just totally seems like it’s one of those jobs that when it’s time to work, the work is 24 hours nonstop.


edit: I’m totally not trying to throw shade here asking this stuff, it’s genuinely interesting. I reread my comments and thought they could be taken the wrong way but I don’t mean anything bad by them

Nope, no problem...all good questions.

No livestock in the winter - drink beer and go to Vegas. Lol. Lots of screwing around, but they will spend that time doing maintenance on machines, or upgrades. There's a lot of little parts and pieces to replace or upgrade on planters, and some farmers spend weeks doing that. For farmers our size though, we'd have nothing to do all winter without livestock though.

After crops are planted, it's a lot of checking. Applying herbicide if there is a weed problem, fertilizer, and water if it's irrigated. There's maintenance on the machinery, farm buildings, and cleaning out the bins to get them ready for the next round of harvest. We also put up alfalfa, which depends on the rain, but that gets cut and baled 3-5 times a summer.

It's a pretty busy job for the most part. There are many nights where we don't eat supper until 10 o'clock.
 
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GTPpower

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every one of the advisor guys? ehh... i don't think that's the case.

Yeah, they all did. On normal years, the farmer typically will make a little more money with one. But commodity have doubled over the last few months. No one had any idea that was coming. So when corn hit $4, those guys were selling. They need it to be $3.25 to break even, for example, so at $4, there is a much larger profit margin than normal.

The reason they work, they help the farmer figure out what it costs to raise the crop. So, if it costs $3.25, any price you can get above that will keep the lights on. $4, was a really good profit, and all those guys will tell the farmer to sell most of his crop, and about 50% of his next year's crop. But today, corn is $6.50-$7, so they lost out on a ton of money.
 
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Yaj Yak

Gladys
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Yeah, they all did. On normal years, the farmer typically will make a little more money with one. But commodity have doubled over the last few months. No one had any idea that was coming. So when corn hit $4, those guys were selling. They need it to be $3.25 to break even, for example, so at $4, there is a much larger profit margin than normal.

The reason they work, they help the farmer figure out what it costs to raise the crop. So, if it costs $3.25, any price you can get above that will keep the lights on. $4, was a really good profit, and all those guys will tell the farmer to sell most of his crop, and about 50% of his next year's crop. But today, corn is $6.50-$7, so they lost out on a ton of money.


unless someone saw it coming.


there's winners and losers on all sides of it... my buddy does it and has for 15 years now and is really good at it, but of course it's all a gamble on all sides.
 

FirstWorldProblems

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This is a cool thread. A friend of mine farms 6,000 acres in lowell/schneider and legit loooooves farming even though he didn't grow up around it at all. I always mess with him and say his fancy equipment drives itself while he watches movies and eats popcorn, lol.

They don't have livestock but he said in winter there's enough work to be done on equipment and buildings to keep them busy.
 

Yaj Yak

Gladys
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Ask him. It's like a financial advisor. Mine says 4 out of 5 years I'll love him, but hate him on the 5th. A marketer is the same. If he told all his clients back in the fall not to sell and wait for the price of corn to more than double, they all would have fired him immediately.


it's not like a financial advisor, he is 1000% a financial advisor.
 

FirstWorldProblems

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When we have really rainy or really dry years with crappy yield he's said "Yep this is going to be an insurance year". How does that work? Like how does insurance value lost yield?

There was another time a couple years ago (i think) where they had so much rain they couldn't get all the corn planted on time (by June 25ish IIRC), and they were trying to figure out whether to plant beans or claim insurance on the corn they couldn't plant in time.
 
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Yaj Yak

Gladys
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When we have really rainy or really dry years with crappy yield he's said "Yep this is going to be an insurance year". How does that work? Like how does insurance value lost yield?

There was another time a couple years ago (i think) where they had so much rain they couldn't get all the corn planted on time (by June 25ish IIRC), and they were trying to figure out whether to plant beans or claim insurance on the corn they couldn't plant in time.


gubment gotchyo back to an extent.
 
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DEEZUZ

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When we have really rainy or really dry years with crappy yield he's said "Yep this is going to be an insurance year". How does that work? Like how does insurance value lost yield?

There was another time a couple years ago (i think) where they had so much rain they couldn't get all the corn planted on time (by June 25ish IIRC), and they were trying to figure out whether to plant beans or claim insurance on the corn they couldn't plant in time.
Farmers are America's biggest recipients of federal aid... Just leave it as that. LMAO
 

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