The "D" word...

[Blaithin]

Hopper bins. My back reminds me how stupid I was when I was young. Worked hard emptying old wooden bins. Digging grain out of corners. Lots of shovelling in large diameter flat bottoms too. Bin sweeps should be sold with respirators. Grain Vac hoses are heavy too but at least your not stooped and twisting like shovelling.....and no dust.

.....hopper bottoms. Or grain bags?

You must be old if you had to shovel out corners!

[Partners]

You must be old if you had to shovel out corners!

Yup.
Corners..no bin sweep..wires in old Square bins that held 1000 bushels.
And steel shovels not aluminum.
We missed the round plywood bin craze..

[Blaithin]

Oh I forgot about the wires! Always hit my head on them 🤕

[Guest]

Luckily these new $16/lb canola varieties dont need rain*

[malleefarmer]

Hopefully not deemed a smart arse question nasty or condescending.

Have any of you guys had total crop failures over the years .

Myself in 82 memory 2700 acres of crop harvested the best maybe 1200 acres 12 to 15 bushels wheat barley grazed the rest.

2002 similar but grain worth $300 per tonne every acre combined.

Since then we seem to be growing better crops on less rain had below average way below but no train wrecks.

No till farming better methods etc etc better fert better chems

[Sheepwheat]

Hopefully not deemed a smart arse question nasty or condescending.

Have any of you guys had total crop failures over the years .

Myself in 82 memory 2700 acres of crop harvested the best maybe 1200 acres 12 to 15 bushels wheat barley grazed the rest.

2002 similar but grain worth $300 per tonne every acre combined.

Since then we seem to be growing better crops on less rain had below average way below but no train wrecks.

No till farming better methods etc etc better fert better chems

Several. Related to too much rain, frost, hail. Worst was caused by too much rain. Worst was 2010, we couldn’t get on the land to seed a thing, zero yield. On the road to our town, a distance of 18 miles, there were I think a total of four fields that got seeded. Two other years seeded less than half due to too wet. Two years with low single digit canola, canary seed, yields due to too much rain. Two or three times got nailed by early frost with next to zero yield. Hail that was 100% wipe out twice. This spring I combined 2 bushel per acre flax that wouldn’t mature last fall, due to too wet, too cool, and poor emergence.

So yeah, I’ve had more than my share of bad crops. Honestly, the harder I look, my farming career has been really quite poor. Just enough good to great crops to stay in the game. Historically this is a very productive area, but since 2004, it’s been pretty sketchy. This year, a dry year relatively, yields are awesome. This area does best, unfortunately, when other areas are too dry. Name a drought year, chances are it was stellar in our little area. Name a year where bumpers happened in dryer areas of the open prairies, chances re we had poor yields due to too much rain.

Went to look at a tractor. Guy selling said they had had 9 good production years in a row. It just hasn’t happened for me. Longest string I put together of good crops in consecutive years was from 1994 to 1998, then 2000 to 2003. Then things went to pot.

Sadly, yeah I’ve had failures. Sorry for rambling.

[fjlip]

Apparently 1961 was horrible DRY,
1988 16 bu. wheat and canola.
2002 18-20 bu. wheat and canola, 24 barley. A blast furnace 2 weeks in August.
2010 17 wheat and 14 canola, but due to 20" of RAIN May June.
Polar opposites same yields, hmmm?

[malleefarmer]

Again not wanting to sound like a turd or a troll ShitZe disturbing.

But those wet year well if you didnt plant you didnt lose or were on different wavelengths with that th8nking

[farmaholic]

Again not wanting to sound like a turd or a troll ShitZe disturbing.

But those wet year well if you didnt plant you didnt lose or were on different wavelengths with that th8nking

Alot of farms need to generate revenue for basic living expenses and pay mortgages, equipment payments, etc.
So it's not only not having to spend the money not being able to seed a crop because it's too wet, it's not being able to generate the money you need otherwise.

[Sheepwheat]

Again not wanting to sound like a turd or a troll ShitZe disturbing.

But those wet year well if you didnt plant you didnt lose or were on different wavelengths with that th8nking

There is still a cost to saturated soil. Applied nitrogen is gone. Needs to be sprayed several times for weeds. Then the ruts need fixing, machinery that gets pulled out and twisted or broken needs fixing. The soil just isn’t the same for several years, compacted, soured, nutrient exchange and production, is gone. My soil only just recovered to its full potential in the last couple years imo. I was having some pretty poor yields for no reason after the wet years, in spite of applying normal nutrients, it just wouldn’t produce like it could. I believe it was an unseen effect of utter and complete saturation for too long.

Course the basics still have to be paid crop or no crop. Living costs, taxes, land rent, mortgage, iron payments, etc.

Those wet years are the reason we started looking at alternatives to grain. The sheep don’t mind the rain. The grass does good, the hay does better, though trying to get nice hay is always a struggle. My only regret is not having sheep DURING those painful years. Such a productive and profitable critter.

[furrowtickler]

Hopefully not deemed a smart arse question nasty or condescending.

Have any of you guys had total crop failures over the years .

Myself in 82 memory 2700 acres of crop harvested the best maybe 1200 acres 12 to 15 bushels wheat barley grazed the rest.

2002 similar but grain worth $300 per tonne every acre combined.

Since then we seem to be growing better crops on less rain had below average way below but no train wrecks.

No till farming better methods etc etc better fert better chems

Yup , 2000 75% wiped out with hail
2001 and 2002 every ac acre was seeded in this area ..... many never even pulled the combines out .

We had 30% of ave crops ...

Then 2004 had a big crop that froze mid August.... that was nearly as bad cause had to harvest a big crop that was worthless
Took us 5 years to get over those losses .

Strange thing is we just had 3 dry years in a row
This year much better rains ... but had hail on 80% of our crop

Back then drought was getting less than 10 bus / ac across the board .
Drought seems different nowadays

Farming is so easy lol

[chuckChuck]

Looks like a large percentage of the US is very dry to extreme drought.