cost of production

[wmoebis]

I was just working on cost of production spread sheets and was wondering what everyone else is putting in for costs?
Fuel
Fertilizer
Chem
Trucking
Crop Ins.
Whith prices moving daily, How is one to estimate accuratly?

[nicolaas]

no room for particulars, but my total cost (incl rent, land payments, equip, seed, fert, labor, etc) has gone from 175.00/acre up to 217.00/acre to grow 5020 or 45h26, and up to 175.00/acre to grow wheat/barley. Need to get a bigger operating loan as I have been unable to move any grain since early January. I need average to above even at these "higher" prices, and a crop failure will be devastating. With a good crop, I will easily clear all debts, and have enough left over for a couple of new combines!! This year will definitly make or break a guys operation. Exciting times for sure.

[darren442]

Nicolaas you said your inputs have gone up may i ask if your yield has went up as well or did it stay the same?

FYI there are ways to cut your chemical rates in half and still have great weed control as well there are ways to cut your N way down and your P as well and have no K either you'll still need S and have better crops then ever (as long as your using liquid fert) . As well there is a way to grow peas for about 15 bucks an acre not including the seed.
Sound interesting?

[tower]

darren442, always interested in alternatives, what have you got?

[nicolaas]

darren, when you say I can grow peas for 15.00 an acre, you must not be including the cost of anything. I can choose to ignore numbers and costs, and my total cost to grow and take off a crop can be quite low, but I still end up having to pay for these things that I chose to ignore. Wow, it costs a minimum of $6.00 an acre just to cultivate or heavy harrow your field, and equipment has to be replaced. If a farmer takes into account his true costs, I know my costs are in line. I am only cropping 4000 acres with older equipment, but I practice notill, utilize generic chemicals at reduced rates etc. That makes my costs at the lower end. I have no unnecessary equipment and have not touched a cultivator in years. I even stopped building bins and utilize a grain bagger now. It was only about 15 years ago when the rule of thumb was about $100/acre to put in a crop and take it off. Those were the days of cheap seed, imputs,equipment,etc. (though roundup was a bit much). I simply stated that the input costs have increased across the board, and if you have low yields or a crop failure ....good luck.

[nicolaas]

Sorry Darren, I should say that my costs for the first post were to plant and harvest the stated crops, and include all costs incurred for the year.

[darren442]

If anybody is interested in hearing about ways to have even germ and emergence under stress, larger denser root mass, more early vigor and improved stress resistance,improved growth in saline soils, improved drought resistance better flowering and pod development, improved crop vigo reduce crop stress improved crop quality . We also help with heat and drought, excessive moisture, poor growing conditions, low fertility soil,chemical stress, disease, we also deal with hard pan soil compaction, poor water infiltration, shallow rooting SALINITY. We can do all this and in alot of cases WITHOUT increasing costs. This has been going on for 29 years in Sask and on over 250,000 acres. And it's all safe to use and handle.It's so safe it can be used on organic farms. Contact me at darren.soil@gmail.com with some contact info and i'll tell you how it's done.

[darren442]

Here are some facts. Out of all the nitrogen you apply only 30-60% is used by the plant. So were does all the rest go ? it gases off, run off or right pass the roots and possibly right into your water. Some studies show by adding micros nutrient uptake can be as low as 3% . So on the best case if you put in the ground 100 lbs of nitrogen at the best 40 lbs is beeing lost . So if you can improve the effeciancey up to 80-90% then you should only need to put down the tube 40-50 lbs of N, then a little boost later. And fact by applying high rates of N to soils low in Sulphur this may induce or intensify sulphur deficiency in the crop. We spend alot of time paying attention to whats above ground and more attention should be made to whats below ground. Ever noticed that some crops don't do that well if canola was cropped the previus year ? I can explain why. There is research explaining how glyphosate is damaging your soil. We have been able to cut herbiced usualy 30% and up to 50% and increase weed kill with the lower rate. We pound down the fertilizer and use alot of chemical then when our yields don't increase and alot of times decrease we look to cut costs elsewere but studies are showing that the high rates of fertilizer and chemical is the reason for this trend of more fert but no better yields. And further more your crop supply dealer aint going to educate on this because they need to keep there supplier's happy

[bgmb]

A few facts,

a bu of wheat removes 1.5 lb on N
a bu of canola removes 1.9 lb of N

a bu of wheat removes .6 lb of P
a bu of canola removes .9lb of p

And it takes about 30% more in the soil to grow the crop.

ex. a 40bu/ac crop of canola will need,

n-p-k-s
120-52-94-24

and what same crop will remove,

75-36-18-13


Darren what you are saying sounds too good to be true. I guess if you want to mine your soil or your yield potential is very low for other reasons you might get away with your low rates.

[bluefargo]

When I worked in the ag business I used to have a "Questionable products " file . Every few years something new would come along to put in the file. After 25 years it got pretty fat.
I know its a cliche but if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.