jhalfhill

Due to some problems with people who hunt my land, and due to some trespassing during rifle season while I am away at school, my dad and I have decided to plant the entire field in field corn and not pick it until rifle season concludes next year. This way the deer will hide in it and no one will be able to hunt because they won't be able to see. The tractors we own are only 40HP PTO because we usually only bale hay. I am looking at about 35 acres of field that needs to be corn.

Some of the local farmers are leary about lending out their equipment for fear that it will break. If that would happen I would replace it, but hey old timers are old timers. Our only options is to rent equipment. I know John Deere rents out tractors, but probably for a good chunk of change. Anyone have any suggestions for renting equipment, and about how much it would take out of your wallet a day? I'm sure we will profit in the long run when the corn is actually picked and sold.

Criggster

Check with your local NRCS office. Sometimes they have equipment to rent. this past year I rented a no-till seed drill for the low cost of $9/acre. And, they delivered it and came and got it when we were finished.

White-tail-deer

Why don't you try to pay one of the local farmers to come in and run their own equipment and work the ground and plant it for you?? You might even be able to work out a crop share and not cost you a dime. Just a thought.

North Texan

I can't blame them for not wanting to let someone borrow their equipment. IMHO, that's a good rule to have. This isn't directed at you, Jeff, so don't take it personal, but a lot of people promise to take care of it and to pay for repairs if needed, but very few ever live up to those promises. And generally people never take as good a care of your equipment as you do. I've been burned a couple of times, and I'm sure these farmers probably have, too. If it is my equipment doing it, I'm the one in the cab.

Since you already have a tractor, you can probably find adecent two row plow and planter for it pretty cheap. Won't get a lot of work done really fast, but it will work. You can look around at tractorhouse.com or machinefinder.com to see whats out there and whats available in your area. I've purchased a tractor, some plows, and some drillsthrough those two websites. Or like Criggster said, you can rent drills from your local SWCD through the NRCS.

If you are going to harvest the corn, your best bet would be to hire someone else to do the cutting. Most people that lease combinescharge a minimum of 100 machine hours.

Going rates for hiring tractor work done around here are from $10-$12.50 an acre, mostly on wheat and haygrazer fields.

I don't know when the corn is ready in your area or when rifle season is, but it may not be worth harvesting if it has to stay in the field too long. Crops lose value very quickly when they are ready to harvest.

Don't count on it.

RonM

Try to hire a farmer to plant it for you or rent the field to a farmer. I doubt they would let the corn stay in the field until Thanksgiving week and later if they expected to make a profit..Cut a deal with them to leave some of it standing after the harvest...

jhalfhill

wow, are you sure that corn degrades that fast after it frosts? i didn't know that. the fly by night farmer that previously rented our field had half of it in corn, and for whatever reason never got to picking it. he picked it the following may, so i can only imagine how good tht corn must have been[:'(]. the deer loved it all winter long tho lol

tazimna

I used to be in the same situation. Tried the farmer role for several years, but found out it was much more economical to rent it out. Making a profit was of no real concern, so I made a farmer a fair offer, and he's been doing it for a number of years now. Good for me, good for him. Your comment of making a profit in the end......get real. When you add your cost of seed, fertilizer, fuel/tractor costs, time involved, weather conditions, bushel return rates, the best you'll do is MAYBE have a small tax write off. RENT the land, let someone else that knows farming take the risk. With such a small acreage, best you could really do is help supplement a cattle farmers feed source. Just my 2 cents. Taz