[AT] Hey Ralph!

[jtchall at nc.rr.com]

I couldn't imagine doing that much farming alone, with modern equipment, 
located on 1 farm with on farm storage--and I'm 30 years younger! I can't 
see how he makes any money, the losses must be astounding.

In regards to quick turnaround, here soybeans behind wheat and wheat behind 
soybeans are often harvested the same day or the next. Usually works well, 
until you get a year like this one. I imagine there will be a lot of wheat 
unplanted.

I actually saw a grain dryer going up the road last week. I haven't heard of 
an operating grain dryer around here (I'm talking the batch dryers you can 
tow around if needed) in over 20 years. This one looked to be fairly new, 
about 500 bu.
The one we had was 3-350bu capacity. It would sometimes run 12-15 hrs a day. 
Fuel was cheap back in the early 70's!

John

-----Original Message----- 
From: Indiana Robinson
Sent: Friday, November 20, 2015 10:54 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Hey Ralph!

I have a casual friend living in the next county east that farms fairly
large (I'm guessing around 1,200 to 1,500 acres) pretty spread out in 3
counties. What is a large farm depends a lot on what part of the country
you live in.
He uses kind of outdated equipment about like I used to use but I was
farming a lot smaller and close to home.
He really needs to cut back a good bit or retire. I believe he is about 77.
He works alone since he and his son do not get along and I have never seen
him hire any help. He also still keeps a couple of dump trucks and hauls
crushed stone from a local quarry.
As a result he is often combining soybeans in January or February and many
years he has to run corn in March or April if it is a bad winter. On some
fields harvest and planting are only a couple of weeks apart.
With the new hybrids etc. it is kind of amazing how well some of it stands
through the winter.
I do recall in the middle 1950's when we were pretty big in hogs my father
buying standing corn very cheap in the field and picking it, hauling it
home and storing it in some quickly built storage to feed to the hogs. Much
of it was down but he was able to get a very good percentage of it by
taking his time picking. Many of the ears showed end damage but that didn't
bother the hogs and it was a very good deal.



-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com
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