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NW Missouri | I disagree. But to each their own.
I'm not setting my rates at what it'll take to encourage people to do it themselves, and I'm not trying to use custom work to pay for, or justify, the machinery. I'm helping some neighbors and recouping my costs (including time) while making a decent profit. If I can make over $200 an hour in exchange for wear and tear, diesel, and my time - that's plenty. The amount of custom work I do is not significant enough to affect the size of equipment I have, so there are no additional costs there. FWIW I'm using a 40 year old tractor and 20 year old planter. The GPS system in the tractor cost more than the tractor did.
I guess I put more weight on the skill required to operate the machine than how much of the year it can be used. This spring I bought an excavator. It takes heck of a lot more skill to run that efficiently than it does to plant corn. I could get the planter dialed in and let my 10-year-old sit in the tractor and turn around on the ends. No way would I turn him loose on the hoe. It's worth roughly the same amount dollar-wise as the planting setup. | |
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Custom Plant/Harvest Rate
