Can Canadian Ag Survive a Down Turn!

[furrowtickler]

you wont save costs on seed in the long run. if many farmers can drop the seed rate from 5 lbs to 2.5 lbs, a bag of canola seed will go from $700 to $1400. eventually all farmers will be forced to buy singulation planters just so that they can get the costs of seed down to compete with the neighbours. so really sk3, you are increasing the costs for your kids to farm when they take over.

That bag of seed is going to keep going up regardless if 5 guys get planters or 35,000 guys get planters.
Fact is most guys are already well below 4 lbs , some in the 3 range with seed hawks / masters which are very good drills .
To us it was about a lot of things ...
1 . Half the cost of a new big drill
2. Reducing disease pressure
3. No need for a 1/2 million $ tractor to pull big drill .
4. Reduce the volume of inputs at seeding / manpower
5. Make more use out of every seed put in the ground
6. Increase our seeding efficiency over our current drill
7. Get extremely quick uniform established canola .
After one season ... some unexpected things ..
- more even uniform stand
- gained 4-5 days maturity
- fast uniform growth greatly reduced flea Beatle damage as the seed treatment is more effective.
Downside
Need to think a little different on fertility with most planters currently.
Maintenance will be more costly over some drills .

I doubt it will ever catch on in a big way because a lot of farms are entrenched in the one pass seeding that is still and will be very effective as well with current seed drills . The whole mindset has been getting to huge equipment to farm huge acres . I don’t see that changing much and am not saying it’s a bad thing. But planters may be an option for some .
It will be “an each to their own “ kinda thing imo

[Bowerpower]

Downturn is needed to put a realistic price on land and equipment again.

[SASKFARMER3]

I know the companies will create a new bullshit price and screw us farmers over and over again. Its a billion dollar screw job so why wouldn't it continue.

But hopefully i get at least 10 good years max before the system screws us. So $1.5 for me over time.

But at the rate farming is going i think were all slowly becoming what my grand father left Europe because he hated.

Those who think were not have blinders on.

[farmaholic]

Bayer is already talking about recommended seeding rates based on TKW. Almost sounds like soybeans....so many seeds.per.acre.

Hope there's no wrecks with bugs, frost, emergence or what ever. Maybe they built in a cushion for that sort of thing.

MBgrower....what you explained, I called having your efficiency stolen! Sad.

[MBgrower]

Wise guy I have 40 quarters with three still having 3 years left and their all clear titles WTF do I need more work for.

Their is no old lady across the road it's our land.

The drill would save me $150000 a year on seed and one less four wheel drive plus one less big drill to pull around its called looking for ways to compete and win at this game we call farming.

Cut my costs has always been my goal.

you wont save costs on seed in the long run. if many farmers can drop the seed rate from 5 lbs to 2.5 lbs, a bag of canola seed will go from $700 to $1400. eventually all farmers will be forced to buy singulation planters just so that they can get the costs of seed down to compete with the neighbours. so really sk3, you are increasing the costs for your kids to farm when they take over.

[bigzee]

My question is, will there be a future for the next generation? IMO my answer is NO!! Where will be the prices of drills, tractors, sprayers, and combines in 5-6 yrs. The manufacturers don’t give a rats ass what commodity prices are at, they just see more and more sales.
There’s no difference in owning or leasing, as machinery goes up so does the payments. Commodity prices are what they are and going to possibly get worse if we continue to produce more, and countries become more “self sufficient”.
I have to agree with one of the earlier posts of social media being a bragging place. I’ve watched combine videos where 14 combines are rolling. People that have no clue about the farming sector, they figure we are all like that and we must be all millionaires. We are peasants, are job is to feed the world for nothing. In 1995 I sold lentils for .20, today reds are .17, in 95 you could make a dollar.
High machinery costs, high land prices, and high cash rents will take down farms before poor commodity prices. I guess everyone’s pencil sharpens differently.

[farmaholic]

SF3...wiseguy's comment was directed at me for making an offer to our neighbor landlady and insinuating I'm buying it cheap to capitalize on it....not in the "Slum of the Ghetto" wiseguy!!!!.....if you weren't born in the Slum you wouldn't farm in the Slum! ;-)

[farmaholic]

Caseih....that auction program was designed that no matter what happened the seller would never get less than the highest bid for each quarter....as stupid as it sounds....even if that meant it reverted back to someone who lost it to another bidder who included it in their parcel/package and who's package was broke up buy another bidder.

If I remember correctly there was over 30 quarters/pieces and it was insane the parcels and packages and individual quarters that got bid on....then changing the out come of who had what every time.

At one point they actually stopped the auction because it crashed(?) or the program stalled and they had to figure shit out.

Oh well, I got the section I went for in the end but can't help think....did I pay more than I had to because of the "auction format"?

[furrowtickler]

A $350,000 planter is still half price of an 80 ft drill .
A lot of the big drill guys are back to floating on fert now anyway. It’s all relative to how much shit you want to drag around , haul , store yadda yadda .
It’s all made to work and each farm is different.... it’s a good thing lol

I bought dirt in 1986 for 64K.....the last land I bought in 2014......wait for it......65K.....thats a 28 year spread for ****'s sake.....and there was a time in there I wouldn't have got what I paid in 86.....too long a spread I might add. But it was never for sale so it didn't matter to ME. To some people it did.

Oh yea ....in 1986(the private sale) the same songs were sung about the land being too expensive as in 2014 at the land "auction" of the local BTO at the time.......

I had no competition in 86 but 2014 was one of those huge Hodgin's land auction cluster****s......anyone attend one of those? I stuck to the package I originally went for and was never "on" for more land than I wanted after someone else's bidding changed who was on what without someone who was out(all together or on certain parcels) actually placing another bid. The problems arose if someone bid on a bunch of different land and got out bid....then with all the combinations and.possibilities could end up getting more than he wanted. The breaking up of bidders packages or blocks caused the trouble. It was a gongshow!

yea we bought one here about same time , biggest cluster**** I ever saw . caught the auctioneer lying and made him straighten it out and we got the quarter for $86k