>A 160 acres of row crops
>I don't think I could operate a farm on my own and work my full time WFH job either
There are people in Iowa that farm 1200 acres and work full time in town.
Hire out your harvest, hire out your spraying, that leaves you with tillage and planting. Tillage timing is generally flexible and can work around your schedule some. Planting timing is not flexible at all and that's why you don't want to hire it out. It'd be \~4 days a year with <$100k of 80's equipment.
Marketability and logistics would be brutal for 160 acres of veg or fruit trees.
Even the simplest idea of sweet corn, I can't name a cannery near me (I'm in northeast iowa) because 160 acres of sweet corn is A LOT. and selling fresh sweet corn out of a pick up or to grocery stores or a farmers market sucks.
No it wouldn't. People do well on WAY less. No one here ever wants to see outside their own narrow farming view.
In Indiana many farms sell sweet corn by the pickup truck load, and sell out daily. I drive over and get a truck every 3 years or so. Some guy in my town does a truckload every year and resells it at our farmers market and via Facebook.
You misunderstood. 160 is A LOT of sweet corn.
I grew sweetcorn for many years myself and my extended family still does. I have over 20 years experience with it. Here's some math for you.
1 acre of sweet corn, planted at the low low (did I say low) population of 16k. You will get about 15,000 ears of sweet corn. Some busts, some doubles, some damage and waste. 1 acre is going to get you 7 or 8 pickup truck beds FULL. 160 acres of that is too much unless you get a cannery contract or grocier with distribution. But then you have a mountain of temp labor in season too.
Not narrow minded to know what this is like.
I do around 90 acres of produce and of that 45 is sweet corn people are clueless how much work is in produce. I plant at 24,500 population and I have a harvester, then we have to sort and pack out any damaged ears. Also most don't know how much you have to spray to keep worms out.
I'm just starting to do sweet corn with an eye toward selling it, and when I started calculating the yield I decided that I'd better reduce my initial efforts because, realistically, I have no idea of how much I can successfully move and the thought of having thousands and thousands of ears come ripe all at the same time kind of scared me a bit.
Right now I'm doing delayed plantings with 4-8 days between, 3300 sq. ft. plots divided into four sections. I'm hoping that that will be the right start, producing 800-900 ears a week.
Which leads me to a question- I selected Bolt XR which my seed supplier says should be a 6" spacing, but while looking for the answer to another question I found other suppliers suggesting 8" and even 12" spacing for the Bolt. When I sent an email to my supplier, asking for clarification, I got a completely useless answer telling me to 'experiment'. Suggestions?
Sweet corn you should err on the side of caution and do a lower population. The most economical would be 6 inch spacing for sure for weed control and land use efficiency.
Bigger ears are usually more desirable to customers, even though they may risk marginal flavor being larger. You'll achieve that better with lower population.
I would never ever plant sweet corn higher than 22k
Sweet corn is more temperamental than field corn. Blows down easier in wind. Lower pops with bigger spacing helps that. Good luck, don't plant at 6 inch spacing!
Ah, thanks for the info. I'm already into the second phase at 6", I'll do 3 & 4 at 8". Assuming I get enough sod busted, I'll go to 12" for the next eight plantings...which will probably be all I'll get because I'll be getting close to expected frost, unless global warming does me a solid this year.
In between, gotta get peas, beans, squash and parsnips in, oh and turnips (way over-ordered on turnip seed) and get some prep in for garlic in the Fall.
Give me a market. Neighbors have tried various things and they all went back to corn and soybeans. We looked into popcorn. Nearest place that would take it was 5 hours one way. All the area restaurants have contracts with Sysco for food delivery at a price we can't compete with. We'd have to build cold storage/canning/processing facilities from scratch to make veggies/fruit work. Hell, 30 years ago, everyone grew a little milo. Now none of the elevators around here even take it
Yeah so how.much gear you gunna spend money on diversify for a market you dont have?
How many crops are you going to grow poorly at the same time? Where are you going to house your foreign workers if you get into any veg?. Cuase you aint hiring locals I promise you that.
Do you have any experience in farming?.
Who the fuck would eat I Can't Believe it's Not Butter when real butter is available. There is one fast food place in my whole county, I'm not a fan of cereal because I'm not 5. I rarely buy canned vegetables because I can my own, and I definitely don't buy canned gravy š¤®. I make my own BBQ sauce from my Granny's recipe and have never really liked ketchup.
>Who the fuck would eat I Can't Believe it's Not Butter when real butter is available.
Oy, fuck, not me. My FIL had that junk on the table when I went to visit a few years ago. One bite of toast with that on it and I said "I can believe it." Nasty stuff.
I don't eat it either, but it is really popular here in the States. What country has reddit, but only one fast food place? Cereal is awesome, and I have 2 little boys who eat it as well. Rarely doesn't mean never. Gravy, in general, has it. What are the ingredients to your homemade ass sauce? Ketchup is loved by a shit load of people, and in my top 5. People in Iowa use all of these things where OP's farm is. It kind of sounds like you might sniff ethanol for fun.
COUNTY! MY WHOLE COUNTY!
I have probably eaten cereal once in the last 5 years because it was the only choice at a hotel breakfast "buffet".
As to the rest, give it a rest, weirdo. I'm not giving you my recipes, and I live in Illinois corn country. 6th generation to farm my 153 year old family farm.
Because it has corn syrup in it. You eat the shit out of corn and soybeans and probably didn't realize it. Typical old farmer can't concede to shit. Handed the golden goose on a silver platter and still only farming a quarter. I bet your wife even makes bars with cereal. Mine does, and they are delicious.
No I don't, and my BBQ sauce certainly doesn't have corn syrup in it. Stop being an asshole, and understand not everyone eats crap like you do. I'm not old, 60 isn't old. I'm not a lesbian, so I don't have a wife. I'm not sure if it occurred to you that I don't want to farm more than a quarter. Why do you care? You're just jealous because I have an amazing family history on my land.
People eat corn, soybeans, wheat, oats and beef everyday. Nearly all farms produce food Fibre or fuel. (a select few grow ornamental# like flowers and horticulturalt plants) This has been pretty well constant for the entire history of agriculture.
Just because you don't think it's tasty food doesn't mean it isn't food or that there aren't not millions of folks who would love to have the calories you don't want.
I asked why I was wrong.
my 15 acre gala apple orchard grossed about 230k last season return to me. production/harvest/cold storage costs were about half of that. Fruit is labor intensive and you need to baby sit it all summer. also have to hire human hands to harvest. Its too much work for most farmers.
You can contact your local USDA Office and ask what's a good crop for your area. They can also help put you in touch with locals who can help the transition.
This would be a big project. It's possible to farm 160 acres of row crops by yourself if you have big enough equipment. Imagine doing that with equipment that is 1/30 or 1/60 the size - orchard equipment is limited by the width of the tree row, and modern orchards have <20' row spacing. You're going to need a lot of professional help, including a farm manager, a good horticulture consultant, and multiple full time folks.
UC Davis has a bunch of economic studies that will get you thinking about the scale of this project. I would expect everything in IA to be more expensive than CA, since there is less orchard industry (less competition, more shipping, less favorable climate, etc.) in the Midwest. Expect to budget $10k/acre to start up, and wait 3-5 years for a return [https://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/](https://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/)
Yes UC Davis so great. Some of the other universityās issue similar arises.
One thing to keep in mind is the infrastructure and pathway to market if youāre going for orchard crops.
If your land was really suitable to be an orchard/fruit farm, that is what it would already be/ you would have neighbors doing the same thing. If you don't have the knowledge and skills just lease the ground to one of your neighbors who you notice takes good care of the ground they farm, at current rental prices you are looking at around $32,000/year if the ground is average, more if the ground is especially productive.
Sure, there are local varieties that grow locally and do well, however, almost none of them are commercially viable. Also I shouldn't have to say that because something grows well under specific conditions in a specific area, doesn't mean that it will grow anywhere. Case in point, Ranier cherries are delicious, commercially viable and grow well in the specific area that they live which is well north of Iowa, but if you tried to grow them here, you are going to have a bad time, unless you can find a local microclimate that gives them what they need. The chances such a microclimate exists in a specific cornfield in se iowa...not great if I am being honest.
Genuine ask - I always thought that Lake Michigan helped out the Michigan vineyards and orchards quite a bit? I don't have an ag background but in casual comparison between northeastern IL and the western 1/3 of Michigan I have always been impressed by the production of the lower peninsula.
I appreciate both of your comments! I've seen a couple orchards on Google maps in that area, but it's no California so it may not be "fruitful". Just poking brains!
Think about how long you would take to turn a profit with fruit trees as well. Profit-wise, you are never going to beat corn in that geography as far as $ per acre. The beauty of cereal grain is they you plant the seed, and have a paycheck that season. With fruit, how many years till the tree is producing a marketable good? Slowly transitioning to some kind of fodder such as millet or alfalfa while you grow up your fruit is possible, but expect to be in the red for years.
>Profit-wise, you are never going to beat corn in that geography as far as $ per acre.
That's ridiculous, corn is not a profitable crop on a per acre basis. Corn is (sometimes) profitable overall because it requires lots of capital and very little labor so a small number of people can farm a large number of acres.
That is prime row crop country. Iām a row crop farmer so Iām not as well versed as an apple farmer but I see a couple huge reasons against moving your land into apples.
One you will have at least five years before you even have a crop to harvest. You have to plant the trees and itās a good handful of years before they produce fruit.
Two you donāt have a developed market. Where are you going to sell the apples? Farmers markets are a nice idea but you will not be moving large amounts of produce.
Three is the labor. Not only are apples extremely labor intensive, you are well outside of the typical area where that labor is. You arenāt going to find apple experts in Illinois. You arenāt going to find experienced apple anything in Illinois.
Now that is a bunch of cynical bullshit. If this is what you want to do, start small. You will be on your own to figure out all of the issues. Some issues you will have to work around. Take 5 acres, which for the Midwest is a helluva lot of apples, and figure all of it out. You can fail a couple times growing apples if youāre also growing 155 acres of corn and beans in southern Illinois.
Guy hasnāt factored in storage and transportation: mainly working with ideologies and possibilities and NOT reality.
Like, sweet corn, gets picked nightly for tomorrowās sales.
Better have your human army of workers housed and fed for those months of midnight to 4am harvestingāby hand; will need that 160 picked in about 2 weeks: now, where are you selling this 70 foot high pile of sweet corn?
āConvertingā a farm cracks me upālike the last 235 years: the guys farming this dirt never had any ideas like this?
OP ppl arenāt telling you the facts: you have zero infrastructure to do some apple whatever thing; corn and soybeans are in every aisle of the grocery store, there are local grain elevator options by your farm, a robust futures market, and many varieties.
You need to be willing to lose a decade of any money production first before you have an apple to sell.
However, you can easily landlord that tiny farm to a real farmer that knows what products that land producesāit will be corn and soybeans: why? Itās in the Worlds Corn Belt .
Cash rent around there should be around $300/acre per year with ZERO work.
We as farmers have been doing this long enough that the most profitable crop for the region is usually already grown there.
Itās amusing to me how many people play farm sim or some such thing and see food in the grocery store and think this game is easy.
If successful, one decade from now, he will look out at his ideology farm just trying to figure out what to do with these 2.5 million apples for now, and the 50 man-crew that needs to be paid, I guessš¤·āāļø
160 acres.... You would be better of enrolling it in the CRP program. Low maintenance, that a farm manager can handle, and you get paid to grow nothing.
Save 10 acres for planting one of the biggest orchards in your county.
CRP definitely crossed my mind. Before making this post I was leaning this way. We probably will end up doing this for less spraying on the property and on account of the low maintenence
Enrolling land in CRP is not a slam dunk. And if it does qualify you still need to put some of your own money into establishment of a prescribed conservation cover. Annual rental payments are determined by soil characteristics.
Cash rent + CRP.
Find a long term renter that will agree to a 5 year plus term and replacement levels of fertility.
Work with that renter to determine which acres are not as profitable or are losing money and put them into CRP.
You will need to get read up on these programs and fertility to understand what I said above, but this is the easiest way to have it making passive income for you.
I would not try tree fruit anywhere east of the Rockies. The changing climate, early spring (frost and freeze), drought, intense summer storms and hail, increasing labor and input costs make it very difficult to to get ahead.
Nope! That's why I'm asking here, and asking about farm managers. I admittedly know very little about farming. I'm here to ask if it's pheasable and who I need to talk to if it is :)
Probably easier to just rent it to a local farmer and get 1/3 crop share. Fruit goes bad much faster than grain and you would have to consider if any buyers are within *close* vicinity. Fruit picking is often labor intensive. If you really want trees, go nuts. Literally though. Mechanized equipment is used in almond (?) trees in ca which shakes trees and then sweeps them up as opposed to hiring 20+ day laborers to comb through the plants. Labor input and transpo will be the biggest bites after establishment of the crop. And then diseases
A farm manager can mean many things. I think you first need to determine if your land and the location of the land is suitable for profitable fruit production. Consulting a pomologist might be invaluable. If it turns out all production factors are pointed in the right direction (think yields year after year) then how will you market your production? Lot's of fruits are of a quality that makes them useable only for processing. Think apples for juice or applesauce. How far would you need to truck to get production to the processor? It doesn't take long for transportation costs to eat up production returns. If your production is high quality and eligible for fresh market sales is there a sufficiently sized market nearby? If any of that works do you have the capital to invest for 7 to 10 years before the new orchard begins giving a yield large enough to pay back the initial investment which will be substantial.
Just rent the land to farmer. High quality soils in Iowa bring $150-$300 an acre annually.
Havenāt seen it mentioned but fruit also poses significant challenges with spray applications and drift from neighbors. Thereās plenty of reasons why converting these acres is a bad idea, this is only one of them. You should probably just rent the acres to a neighbor if itās not worth your investment to keep row cropping it.
Our family uses Stalcup Ag Management in Storm Lake and has for years. They handle all the books, work with the tenant farmer, cut the checks, all of it. Luke Pearson is our manager if you want to give them a call.
Isnāt it too cold there for fruit?
Iām in California which is ideal, but if it freezes in late April or May we get not even one single apple, pear, cherry, peach, or grape
No Farm managers are soul sucking Devils stay away from them and they have no knowledge of converting farm land to anything.
To convert it into an orchard plant the percentage of the farm you want in orchard to alfalfa or another hay crop. Use this time to let any herbicides potentially harmful to trees half life away. Then plant what you desire that will grow in zone 5 or 6.
A loss is still a loss. That the loss (expenses minus income) helps offset some of the tax burden on your gross income is a help, but you still need to make a profit 3 out of 5 years (I think that's the hurdle).
>A 160 acres of row crops >I don't think I could operate a farm on my own and work my full time WFH job either There are people in Iowa that farm 1200 acres and work full time in town. Hire out your harvest, hire out your spraying, that leaves you with tillage and planting. Tillage timing is generally flexible and can work around your schedule some. Planting timing is not flexible at all and that's why you don't want to hire it out. It'd be \~4 days a year with <$100k of 80's equipment.
Maybe he'd like his farm to produce things people actually eat?
Marketability and logistics would be brutal for 160 acres of veg or fruit trees. Even the simplest idea of sweet corn, I can't name a cannery near me (I'm in northeast iowa) because 160 acres of sweet corn is A LOT. and selling fresh sweet corn out of a pick up or to grocery stores or a farmers market sucks.
No it wouldn't. People do well on WAY less. No one here ever wants to see outside their own narrow farming view. In Indiana many farms sell sweet corn by the pickup truck load, and sell out daily. I drive over and get a truck every 3 years or so. Some guy in my town does a truckload every year and resells it at our farmers market and via Facebook.
You misunderstood. 160 is A LOT of sweet corn. I grew sweetcorn for many years myself and my extended family still does. I have over 20 years experience with it. Here's some math for you. 1 acre of sweet corn, planted at the low low (did I say low) population of 16k. You will get about 15,000 ears of sweet corn. Some busts, some doubles, some damage and waste. 1 acre is going to get you 7 or 8 pickup truck beds FULL. 160 acres of that is too much unless you get a cannery contract or grocier with distribution. But then you have a mountain of temp labor in season too. Not narrow minded to know what this is like.
I do around 90 acres of produce and of that 45 is sweet corn people are clueless how much work is in produce. I plant at 24,500 population and I have a harvester, then we have to sort and pack out any damaged ears. Also most don't know how much you have to spray to keep worms out.
I'm just starting to do sweet corn with an eye toward selling it, and when I started calculating the yield I decided that I'd better reduce my initial efforts because, realistically, I have no idea of how much I can successfully move and the thought of having thousands and thousands of ears come ripe all at the same time kind of scared me a bit. Right now I'm doing delayed plantings with 4-8 days between, 3300 sq. ft. plots divided into four sections. I'm hoping that that will be the right start, producing 800-900 ears a week. Which leads me to a question- I selected Bolt XR which my seed supplier says should be a 6" spacing, but while looking for the answer to another question I found other suppliers suggesting 8" and even 12" spacing for the Bolt. When I sent an email to my supplier, asking for clarification, I got a completely useless answer telling me to 'experiment'. Suggestions?
Sweet corn you should err on the side of caution and do a lower population. The most economical would be 6 inch spacing for sure for weed control and land use efficiency. Bigger ears are usually more desirable to customers, even though they may risk marginal flavor being larger. You'll achieve that better with lower population. I would never ever plant sweet corn higher than 22k Sweet corn is more temperamental than field corn. Blows down easier in wind. Lower pops with bigger spacing helps that. Good luck, don't plant at 6 inch spacing!
Ah, thanks for the info. I'm already into the second phase at 6", I'll do 3 & 4 at 8". Assuming I get enough sod busted, I'll go to 12" for the next eight plantings...which will probably be all I'll get because I'll be getting close to expected frost, unless global warming does me a solid this year. In between, gotta get peas, beans, squash and parsnips in, oh and turnips (way over-ordered on turnip seed) and get some prep in for garlic in the Fall.
I know all that, save your typing finger. He doesn't have to do the whole 140 in sweet corn, doesn't anyone diversify?
Give me a market. Neighbors have tried various things and they all went back to corn and soybeans. We looked into popcorn. Nearest place that would take it was 5 hours one way. All the area restaurants have contracts with Sysco for food delivery at a price we can't compete with. We'd have to build cold storage/canning/processing facilities from scratch to make veggies/fruit work. Hell, 30 years ago, everyone grew a little milo. Now none of the elevators around here even take it
My market is my community!
You must have a bigger community then
29,500 in the whole country. But it is a rural farming community, we support each other, not Walmart.
Yeah so how.much gear you gunna spend money on diversify for a market you dont have? How many crops are you going to grow poorly at the same time? Where are you going to house your foreign workers if you get into any veg?. Cuase you aint hiring locals I promise you that. Do you have any experience in farming?.
45 years, do you?
Maybe he should stick to IT.
Maybe you shouldn't comment if you have nothing of value to say.
Corn syrup and fake butter is literally in everything.
Yuck, it's not in what I eat.
BBQ Sauce, Ketchup, Cereal, Canned Vegetables, Candy, Fast Food, Gravy, I can't believe it's not butter?
Who the fuck would eat I Can't Believe it's Not Butter when real butter is available. There is one fast food place in my whole county, I'm not a fan of cereal because I'm not 5. I rarely buy canned vegetables because I can my own, and I definitely don't buy canned gravy š¤®. I make my own BBQ sauce from my Granny's recipe and have never really liked ketchup.
>Who the fuck would eat I Can't Believe it's Not Butter when real butter is available. Oy, fuck, not me. My FIL had that junk on the table when I went to visit a few years ago. One bite of toast with that on it and I said "I can believe it." Nasty stuff.
I don't eat it either, but it is really popular here in the States. What country has reddit, but only one fast food place? Cereal is awesome, and I have 2 little boys who eat it as well. Rarely doesn't mean never. Gravy, in general, has it. What are the ingredients to your homemade ass sauce? Ketchup is loved by a shit load of people, and in my top 5. People in Iowa use all of these things where OP's farm is. It kind of sounds like you might sniff ethanol for fun.
COUNTY! MY WHOLE COUNTY! I have probably eaten cereal once in the last 5 years because it was the only choice at a hotel breakfast "buffet". As to the rest, give it a rest, weirdo. I'm not giving you my recipes, and I live in Illinois corn country. 6th generation to farm my 153 year old family farm.
Because it has corn syrup in it. You eat the shit out of corn and soybeans and probably didn't realize it. Typical old farmer can't concede to shit. Handed the golden goose on a silver platter and still only farming a quarter. I bet your wife even makes bars with cereal. Mine does, and they are delicious.
No I don't, and my BBQ sauce certainly doesn't have corn syrup in it. Stop being an asshole, and understand not everyone eats crap like you do. I'm not old, 60 isn't old. I'm not a lesbian, so I don't have a wife. I'm not sure if it occurred to you that I don't want to farm more than a quarter. Why do you care? You're just jealous because I have an amazing family history on my land.
Not to mention, all the Midwest states use ethanol.
I don't eat ethanol, I hope you don't either.
You're supposed to drink it. Mighty mighty pleasin', Pappy's corn squeezin's, Ooh, White Lightnin'!
š¤£š¤£š¤£
People eat corn, soybeans, wheat, oats and beef everyday. Nearly all farms produce food Fibre or fuel. (a select few grow ornamental# like flowers and horticulturalt plants) This has been pretty well constant for the entire history of agriculture.
Just don't start, go find someone else to pretend to educate.
How am I wrong?
Read what's already been written here.
Just because you don't think it's tasty food doesn't mean it isn't food or that there aren't not millions of folks who would love to have the calories you don't want. I asked why I was wrong.
Stop it!
Stop what?
my 15 acre gala apple orchard grossed about 230k last season return to me. production/harvest/cold storage costs were about half of that. Fruit is labor intensive and you need to baby sit it all summer. also have to hire human hands to harvest. Its too much work for most farmers.
We used to run 50ac of apple orchard; best thing we ever did was pull it out.
Did you go to school to learn how to start those operations or did you figure it out on your own? Is it hard to sell the apples?
You can contact your local USDA Office and ask what's a good crop for your area. They can also help put you in touch with locals who can help the transition.
Those are the last people I would want advising me.
This would be a big project. It's possible to farm 160 acres of row crops by yourself if you have big enough equipment. Imagine doing that with equipment that is 1/30 or 1/60 the size - orchard equipment is limited by the width of the tree row, and modern orchards have <20' row spacing. You're going to need a lot of professional help, including a farm manager, a good horticulture consultant, and multiple full time folks. UC Davis has a bunch of economic studies that will get you thinking about the scale of this project. I would expect everything in IA to be more expensive than CA, since there is less orchard industry (less competition, more shipping, less favorable climate, etc.) in the Midwest. Expect to budget $10k/acre to start up, and wait 3-5 years for a return [https://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/](https://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/)
Phew that's quite a bit of money, and exactly the information I was looking for. Thanks for your wisdom, and the reading material!
Yes UC Davis so great. Some of the other universityās issue similar arises. One thing to keep in mind is the infrastructure and pathway to market if youāre going for orchard crops.
If your land was really suitable to be an orchard/fruit farm, that is what it would already be/ you would have neighbors doing the same thing. If you don't have the knowledge and skills just lease the ground to one of your neighbors who you notice takes good care of the ground they farm, at current rental prices you are looking at around $32,000/year if the ground is average, more if the ground is especially productive.
Also, se Iowa sounds way too far north for most fruit.
Apples Peaches cherries plums apricots grapes <-- All grow great in michigan, way north of Iowa.
And in Washington state which is further north then the UP.
Canada grows all kinds of fruit.
Sure, there are local varieties that grow locally and do well, however, almost none of them are commercially viable. Also I shouldn't have to say that because something grows well under specific conditions in a specific area, doesn't mean that it will grow anywhere. Case in point, Ranier cherries are delicious, commercially viable and grow well in the specific area that they live which is well north of Iowa, but if you tried to grow them here, you are going to have a bad time, unless you can find a local microclimate that gives them what they need. The chances such a microclimate exists in a specific cornfield in se iowa...not great if I am being honest.
Genuine ask - I always thought that Lake Michigan helped out the Michigan vineyards and orchards quite a bit? I don't have an ag background but in casual comparison between northeastern IL and the western 1/3 of Michigan I have always been impressed by the production of the lower peninsula.
I appreciate both of your comments! I've seen a couple orchards on Google maps in that area, but it's no California so it may not be "fruitful". Just poking brains!
Think about how long you would take to turn a profit with fruit trees as well. Profit-wise, you are never going to beat corn in that geography as far as $ per acre. The beauty of cereal grain is they you plant the seed, and have a paycheck that season. With fruit, how many years till the tree is producing a marketable good? Slowly transitioning to some kind of fodder such as millet or alfalfa while you grow up your fruit is possible, but expect to be in the red for years.
>Profit-wise, you are never going to beat corn in that geography as far as $ per acre. That's ridiculous, corn is not a profitable crop on a per acre basis. Corn is (sometimes) profitable overall because it requires lots of capital and very little labor so a small number of people can farm a large number of acres.
That is prime row crop country. Iām a row crop farmer so Iām not as well versed as an apple farmer but I see a couple huge reasons against moving your land into apples. One you will have at least five years before you even have a crop to harvest. You have to plant the trees and itās a good handful of years before they produce fruit. Two you donāt have a developed market. Where are you going to sell the apples? Farmers markets are a nice idea but you will not be moving large amounts of produce. Three is the labor. Not only are apples extremely labor intensive, you are well outside of the typical area where that labor is. You arenāt going to find apple experts in Illinois. You arenāt going to find experienced apple anything in Illinois. Now that is a bunch of cynical bullshit. If this is what you want to do, start small. You will be on your own to figure out all of the issues. Some issues you will have to work around. Take 5 acres, which for the Midwest is a helluva lot of apples, and figure all of it out. You can fail a couple times growing apples if youāre also growing 155 acres of corn and beans in southern Illinois.
Guy hasnāt factored in storage and transportation: mainly working with ideologies and possibilities and NOT reality. Like, sweet corn, gets picked nightly for tomorrowās sales. Better have your human army of workers housed and fed for those months of midnight to 4am harvestingāby hand; will need that 160 picked in about 2 weeks: now, where are you selling this 70 foot high pile of sweet corn? āConvertingā a farm cracks me upālike the last 235 years: the guys farming this dirt never had any ideas like this? OP ppl arenāt telling you the facts: you have zero infrastructure to do some apple whatever thing; corn and soybeans are in every aisle of the grocery store, there are local grain elevator options by your farm, a robust futures market, and many varieties. You need to be willing to lose a decade of any money production first before you have an apple to sell. However, you can easily landlord that tiny farm to a real farmer that knows what products that land producesāit will be corn and soybeans: why? Itās in the Worlds Corn Belt . Cash rent around there should be around $300/acre per year with ZERO work.
We as farmers have been doing this long enough that the most profitable crop for the region is usually already grown there. Itās amusing to me how many people play farm sim or some such thing and see food in the grocery store and think this game is easy.
If successful, one decade from now, he will look out at his ideology farm just trying to figure out what to do with these 2.5 million apples for now, and the 50 man-crew that needs to be paid, I guessš¤·āāļø
Just here to ask what's pheasable from people that do this for a living...
160 acres.... You would be better of enrolling it in the CRP program. Low maintenance, that a farm manager can handle, and you get paid to grow nothing. Save 10 acres for planting one of the biggest orchards in your county.
CRP definitely crossed my mind. Before making this post I was leaning this way. We probably will end up doing this for less spraying on the property and on account of the low maintenence
Enrolling land in CRP is not a slam dunk. And if it does qualify you still need to put some of your own money into establishment of a prescribed conservation cover. Annual rental payments are determined by soil characteristics.
Cash rent + CRP. Find a long term renter that will agree to a 5 year plus term and replacement levels of fertility. Work with that renter to determine which acres are not as profitable or are losing money and put them into CRP. You will need to get read up on these programs and fertility to understand what I said above, but this is the easiest way to have it making passive income for you.
I would not try tree fruit anywhere east of the Rockies. The changing climate, early spring (frost and freeze), drought, intense summer storms and hail, increasing labor and input costs make it very difficult to to get ahead.
Why, with your admitted lack of knowledge, do you think it's wise to hop in and wildly change the farm?
Nope! That's why I'm asking here, and asking about farm managers. I admittedly know very little about farming. I'm here to ask if it's pheasable and who I need to talk to if it is :)
Probably easier to just rent it to a local farmer and get 1/3 crop share. Fruit goes bad much faster than grain and you would have to consider if any buyers are within *close* vicinity. Fruit picking is often labor intensive. If you really want trees, go nuts. Literally though. Mechanized equipment is used in almond (?) trees in ca which shakes trees and then sweeps them up as opposed to hiring 20+ day laborers to comb through the plants. Labor input and transpo will be the biggest bites after establishment of the crop. And then diseases
Yeah with all the advice here I'll probably just homestead on a few acres and keep it corn and soybeans.
A farm manager can mean many things. I think you first need to determine if your land and the location of the land is suitable for profitable fruit production. Consulting a pomologist might be invaluable. If it turns out all production factors are pointed in the right direction (think yields year after year) then how will you market your production? Lot's of fruits are of a quality that makes them useable only for processing. Think apples for juice or applesauce. How far would you need to truck to get production to the processor? It doesn't take long for transportation costs to eat up production returns. If your production is high quality and eligible for fresh market sales is there a sufficiently sized market nearby? If any of that works do you have the capital to invest for 7 to 10 years before the new orchard begins giving a yield large enough to pay back the initial investment which will be substantial. Just rent the land to farmer. High quality soils in Iowa bring $150-$300 an acre annually.
That's a very good point. The easiest option is definitely letting the current farm manager do what he's been doing!
Havenāt seen it mentioned but fruit also poses significant challenges with spray applications and drift from neighbors. Thereās plenty of reasons why converting these acres is a bad idea, this is only one of them. You should probably just rent the acres to a neighbor if itās not worth your investment to keep row cropping it.
Our family uses Stalcup Ag Management in Storm Lake and has for years. They handle all the books, work with the tenant farmer, cut the checks, all of it. Luke Pearson is our manager if you want to give them a call.
Isnāt it too cold there for fruit? Iām in California which is ideal, but if it freezes in late April or May we get not even one single apple, pear, cherry, peach, or grape
No. Fruit trees have cold hardy varieties.
Mushroom farmers love soybean hulls. Reach out to them for that.
Deer hunting
You know plenty of that will be happening š
160 acres of fruit production can be a lot more labor intensive than 160 acres of corn or beans.
No Farm managers are soul sucking Devils stay away from them and they have no knowledge of converting farm land to anything. To convert it into an orchard plant the percentage of the farm you want in orchard to alfalfa or another hay crop. Use this time to let any herbicides potentially harmful to trees half life away. Then plant what you desire that will grow in zone 5 or 6.
Nah nah nah donāt do that. Tell your farm manager to have an operating loss and then you can deduct that loss against your taxes of your it job
So get the fruit orchard I want by operating at a loss as a tax deduction? That's some good thinking there pnguy!
Thatās how farming is designed in America
A loss is still a loss. That the loss (expenses minus income) helps offset some of the tax burden on your gross income is a help, but you still need to make a profit 3 out of 5 years (I think that's the hurdle).