|
Devils Lake, ND | I agree 100% on having roads that can handle more weight. I want to go 105k year around, with a 10% overload starting at wheat harvest, and 20% starting when the ground is good and froze. There have been quite a few bins built around here, the result of bigger yields and aging government bins from back who knows when. Most grain is stored on the farm, so additional bin space doesn't speed up harvest much. (Little of it goes to town during harvest anyway.)
One thing that guys around here have failed at is in upgrading material handling when they update. They trade an old 10" auger in on a new 10" auger instead of a 13." An old tandem axle hopper bottom in on a new tandem instead of a triple. The same for semis. Building two 30,000 bins instead of on 60 (which is cheaper to boot). It takes just as long to back a 1,000 bushel load up to a 13" auger as a 750 bushel load up to a 10" auger, so why not?
The railroad thing here is big, and I don't see it improving much. BNSF replaced the rails going through here so they can load hopper cars heavier, but that's as good as it is going to get any time soon.
Livestock (cows here) back on the farm definitely has merit. The Canadians have some kind of combine that harvest wheat chaff and the weeds along with the wheat, for later separation at the farm. The chaff and weeds make excellent cow feed, in addition to getting weed seeds off the field. Pasture land around here is woefully underutilized as well (but probably still way overpriced). Very little of it gets a herbicide, and NONE gets fertilized.
On a side note, we are no where near production levels that are possible with today's, cost-effective technology. If the bottom third of the farmers would rent/sublease their land to the top third, production would instantly grow 25%. There is a lot of chemfallow in Montana still, much of which is probably necessary; I don't know. But if those idle acres could be cropped without impacting the yield of the subsequent crop, it would be huge. That is the angle they are using with camelina. I think field peas are filling this niche as well. | |
|
what would it take for you to handle an average yield increase per acre of 25...50....100%???
