Saxlingham – July Economics

July was always going to be about harvests but some other tasks found a way to help when the weather didn’t. There were some surprises too which may have shaped my farm’s growth for the foreseeable future.

First task for me this month was to harvest my Oat fields – Time to disrupt the traffic on the A140 once more…

…As usual I paid a worker to harvest the crop while I collected it with the Valtra and Bailey trailer…

…With field 3 harvested I moved on to field 19 where we repeated the procedure. I have always taken the harvesting of my crops as a necessary expense but this year I decided to quantify it – It’s time to look closely at our expenses and try to be as efficient in our choices as possible.

Harvesting both fields with a combined size of 7.52 Hectares produced a yield of 88755ltrs of Oats. Ignoring fuel burn, the work costed out as follows:-

• Labour = £1693
• Harvester Maintenance = £2078
• Tractor Maintenance = £510
• Trailer Maintenance = £32

Bearing in mind that I have little control over how much it costs to maintain vehicles and the cost of the labour involved, these figures would form the basis of an experiment in the second week of the month. But the first week of the month would be closed out with some bale-wrapping of all things…

The second week and contracts for two large fields adjacent to each other – 10 & 16. So I followed the same formula, providing my own equipment and hiring a worker…

…Leasing vehicles for both these jobs would each have cost £3200. Using my own equipment worked out as significantly more expensive costing £6743 in maintenance after the work was completed. The key thing to understand in all this is that the only thing I can control is when I choose to hire and that ultimately is down to size of field. After much extrapolation I have concluded that the cut-off point is 5 Hectares – Over that and it’s more cost effective to hire when doing contracts. Below that and I should do the work with my own machines. Of my own fields, only one sits in the crossover region – field 2 at 5.2 Hectares and I’m not leasing for that field. This has led me to a policy decision – Going forwards my field purchases should be of no more than the 5.2 Hectare size of field 2. Fortunately, all the fields I’m currently listing for possible purchase fall below the 5 Hectare threshold.

One way I could improve my maintenance costs would be to replace my Harvester but that would cost over £500k. Currently I think we will soldier on with the existing machine. However, I noted that the Valtra tends to cost more to maintain than the Massey Ferguson 8S. Tractor maintenance scales up with size and horsepower, so that’s not surprising. I reappraised my needs in the light of the decision on field size and concluded that I really had no need for a 370HP tractor. So, at the start of the 3rd week I took the Valtra on a final trip down to the dealer where I got £195k for it. I will miss it but common sense must prevail.

Rain was forecast for early in that 3rd week so I picked up a couple of cultivating jobs, leasing and hiring a worker for field 10 while I tackled field 8 with the 8S and my Kuhn Prolander. The calculations regards field size matter less with this sort of work and I’m using the relative size of payment as a guide for when to lease. The rain when it came turned out to be hail once more…

…Then, once the storms had cleared in the second half of the week I took a job to harvest field 46, arriving on site with the harvester header to find a steady stream of people out for a walk!..

…So, setting up the header so the harvester could pick it up was a bit difficult but we got it sorted out in the end. The harvest itself went well…

…and this is looking like the right option for purchase next although nearby field 45 is also looking like a good option for the future.

The last week of the month offered a very good job to harvest field 37 – Over £30k!. This is definitely a ‘hire the vehicles’ job. But as we know from experience, you get what you’re given with these. The Case IH AF11 Harvester has no place on Norfolk’s country lanes…

…Not to mention the International LT and a Prestige trailer!..

…As you can imagine, I had extreme difficulty getting that into and out of the Old Mill to drop off the grain! Of course, it would have been easier in American Truck Sim 😂

Despite the difficulties, the harvest was completed promptly allowing me to fit in a fertilizing trip to my grass fields with the 8S and Spreader…

…before completing the week with a baling contract using a JCB 2135 and New Holland round baler…

One final note – Take a look at this…

…That is crop damage caused by a mini-tornado which passed through the area in the second week of July. These are very rare events in the UK and the first time I’ve experienced one in-game. That’s significant reduced yield for David’s corn crop.

I closed out the month by giving the 8S and Spreader a wash before putting them to bed…

…On to August and yet more harvesting 😎👍