Recently there was a thread talking about gambling and I commented that the closest I come to gambling is with farming. Some of you may know that I operate a small (87 acre) hobby farm where I grow wheat and soybeans. We just finished up harvesting my wheat last week and I thought I'd share how challenging it can be at times. It is not uncommon to hear about the bumper crop years but we can have really poor years too.
I've been farming my land for about 25 years and my average gross yield for wheat is about 46 bushels per acre. I've had as high as 54 and this year was by far my worst year to date. It started out with a gross yield of just short of 25 bushels per acre, which is about 54% of my 25-year average.
Gross yield includes all of the non-wheat junk that is in the load and this year my wheat was pretty dirty. Naturally, the buyers have no desire for grass seeds and other junk so they screen a sample and calculate the percentage of my load that is non-wheat and then subtract that from my gross yield to arrive at my net yield. They also charge a fee for the cost of screening the entire load to remove the junk.
My moisture content in the wheat was good so I didn't have to pay any drying costs.
It is not uncommon, especially in wet years as we had this year, for grasses and other weeds to begin growing late in the season. To harvest the wheat it is necessary to kill those weeds so they are dry and don't plug up the combine. Many, if not most, farmers spray their wheat with Round-up about a week before harvest. The purpose is to kill all weeds so they can straight cut the wheat and reduce the potential for damage resulting from swath cutting it. It also reduces the number of times equipment is driven on the ground and thereby reducing soil compaction. I personally have an aversion to putting chemicals on my crops just prior to harvesting so I still employ swath cutting my wheat and then waiting for things to dry before harvesting. This method increases a risk of wheat seeds beginning to sprout while they lay in the windrow, especially if it is humid or rainy. My wheat was okay and didn't have a lot of sprouted seed so I was not hit hard for that.
Wheat is also evaluated on its protein content and this year I took a pretty hard hit and it cost me $1.00 per bushel due to the low protein level. One of the steps that I take to improve protein is adding nitrogen to my ground. Unfortunately, the wet year we had can negatively affect the amount of available nitrogen to the crop and I suspect this is probably the main reason for my low protein. So, not only did it cost me $1.00 per bushel at harvest, it also cost me for the fertilizer that had no effect.
This year I was hit extremely hard due to something called vomitoxin, which is the result of a fungus. According to what I've read, this isn't much I can do above what I already do to control this sort of thing except look for seed that is more resistant to the fungus. This condition cost me about half my net yield.
In a nutshell, after I calculate the cost of seed, fertilizer, weed control, harvest, fuel, tillage, and equipment wear I will be spending about $50.00 per acre for the privilege of growing wheat this year. My only hope is that I experience a bumper soybean crop to offset the losses from my wheat. So far, they are looking pretty good but we're about a month away from harvest yet.
I've been farming my land for about 25 years and my average gross yield for wheat is about 46 bushels per acre. I've had as high as 54 and this year was by far my worst year to date. It started out with a gross yield of just short of 25 bushels per acre, which is about 54% of my 25-year average.
Gross yield includes all of the non-wheat junk that is in the load and this year my wheat was pretty dirty. Naturally, the buyers have no desire for grass seeds and other junk so they screen a sample and calculate the percentage of my load that is non-wheat and then subtract that from my gross yield to arrive at my net yield. They also charge a fee for the cost of screening the entire load to remove the junk.
My moisture content in the wheat was good so I didn't have to pay any drying costs.
It is not uncommon, especially in wet years as we had this year, for grasses and other weeds to begin growing late in the season. To harvest the wheat it is necessary to kill those weeds so they are dry and don't plug up the combine. Many, if not most, farmers spray their wheat with Round-up about a week before harvest. The purpose is to kill all weeds so they can straight cut the wheat and reduce the potential for damage resulting from swath cutting it. It also reduces the number of times equipment is driven on the ground and thereby reducing soil compaction. I personally have an aversion to putting chemicals on my crops just prior to harvesting so I still employ swath cutting my wheat and then waiting for things to dry before harvesting. This method increases a risk of wheat seeds beginning to sprout while they lay in the windrow, especially if it is humid or rainy. My wheat was okay and didn't have a lot of sprouted seed so I was not hit hard for that.
Wheat is also evaluated on its protein content and this year I took a pretty hard hit and it cost me $1.00 per bushel due to the low protein level. One of the steps that I take to improve protein is adding nitrogen to my ground. Unfortunately, the wet year we had can negatively affect the amount of available nitrogen to the crop and I suspect this is probably the main reason for my low protein. So, not only did it cost me $1.00 per bushel at harvest, it also cost me for the fertilizer that had no effect.
This year I was hit extremely hard due to something called vomitoxin, which is the result of a fungus. According to what I've read, this isn't much I can do above what I already do to control this sort of thing except look for seed that is more resistant to the fungus. This condition cost me about half my net yield.
In a nutshell, after I calculate the cost of seed, fertilizer, weed control, harvest, fuel, tillage, and equipment wear I will be spending about $50.00 per acre for the privilege of growing wheat this year. My only hope is that I experience a bumper soybean crop to offset the losses from my wheat. So far, they are looking pretty good but we're about a month away from harvest yet.