Selling standing silage and sowing winter wheat

merryberry

I have just taken over the family farm, approx ~80 acres in total of which 70ac are productive brown podzolics and 10ac fen in need of attention. The land is all in permanent pasture and has been for over 25 years.

I do have an interest in livestock but I would really love to have a go at tillage on the 70ac. It is what I am interested in and I think you need an interest, at the very least, to succeed. Another reason for pursuing tillage as an enterprise is that I work fulltime off the farm and my job by its nature requires time commitments – time which would be taken away from tending to livestock. Crop margins were positive last year and I read that achieving healthy margins may be a challenge this coming year with peaks and troughs to be expected in later years.

I am looking at winter wheat for this September/ October. In the meantime, I was considering silage for sale on the 70acs. I will soil sample first and see what nutrients need to be addressed. I have a few questions and I would appreciate any advice or thoughts that people may have:

What is the going rate for selling a standing crop of silage? I will fertilise myself. I reckon that this will cost €4000 alone to fertilise (70 ac x 100 units N = 7000 units N = ~12.5 tonnes CAN (27.5%) @ €320/t). That’s only chemical N purchases; I don’t have a spreader so considering bulk spreading carried out by the co-op. I would be confident that I could sell the bulk of it if beef prices remain positive as high prices may be an incentive to carry more livestock - also distorted land rental market spurred by the CAP 2014 reference date may add to this. If the 70ac standing crop doesn’t sell, I can have it cut myself at €120/ac. I have slatted sheds and silage sheds. I would consider a B&B arrangement with neighbouring farmers with silage available on site. Again, positive beef prices may encourage this arrangement. Would having silage on site be considered an added benefit and, if so, what would be the going rate for such an arrangement?

Getting back to winter wheat. The crop will be following permanent pasture that was cut only. I am therefore assuming an N index of 4 (at current CAN prices, potential saving of €4,200 on chemical N over 70 acres). My biggest concern would be P’s, K’s and lime (trace elements – need a more specialised soil sample). The land has not been soil sampled for some time! There is of course slurry from a possible livestock B&B arrangement. By questions on the tillage enterprise:

Savings could be made on fertiliser. Are there other potential savings on crop establishment costs following grass e.g. sprays? On the other hand are there additional costs? – i.e. costs that don’t occur in a continuous tillage situation.

A rotation of winter wheat, winter wheat, winter barley, winter oil seed rape might be possible; it would be a whole farm rotation as distinct from dividing the farm into 4 parts (3 crops). Is this possible? I’m very much exposed with a monoculture. Is this rotation too short for WOSR? Can at least 4t/ac be expected for 1st wheat’s after grass and after WOSR

Again, I appreciate any comments (and criticisms). Many thanks

JohnBoy

% of Rental value + (fertilser+spreading)*markup=selling price.

Essentially the markup is your profit over just renting the ground.

We had no shortage of interest last year in a standing crop of silage. placed an ad in the local paper and had about 10 calls.

the same man took the second cut and even a bit of aftergrass grazing. He paid a good price, and more importantly paid it on time, and this year is looking for the same again.

Maybe we were lucky.


I'd say the dairy men are a bigger market than the beef men.


Beware buyers looking to fertlise themselves. there's no guarantee they'll put back in as much as they remove.


Also if you're taking a cut of silage off the ground do you need to put out more than just Nitrogen. what about P&K


get the soil tested, and get an adviser to look at the results and give you a fertiliser plan that will at least leave the ground in as good a state as where you started.

the mucker

1 in 4 is a bit tight for Wosr. Oats either winter or spring are a good break crop for WW and are cheap to grow. Very useful to keeps wheats in the rotation and push out the oilseed rape.

Good loser

I'd rather rent out the land or part of it than go the silage route. Should get up to €200 per acre for year - less if you want to plough in Sept. Tillage suits part time farming better than livestock unless you have someone nearby to mind them. They take quite a bit of capital.

49801

doing your own spraying can be tricky if you work full time.
its grand in a good year with long evenings but in a bad year where timeliness is most important its a nightmare. i've a 12m 800L sprayer and can cover 25acres in an evening if i get home early, have the sprayer already on, chemicals organised etc. fert is a lot simplier as only needs 1/2 applications. you could have to cover the whole place 3/4 times with the sprayer

so just depends on how flexible your job is. but for 70acres i think you would want to be able to stay home at short notice to get it done in a bad year.

not sure why i went on a rant about spraying as you have not mentioned it but i was assuming that you were planning on doing it yourself.

rental market should be good at the moment but you dont want to do that. perhaps if a good neighbour was interested who wont abuse your soil? spend a couple of sundays evenings in the pub locally and you never know.

we've put parts of the place into cropping for a couple of years as part of our grassland reseeding program and have found the cereals unprofitable. but we are paying for everything as we only do our own, fert, spraying, rolling.
contractor for ploughing, tilling/drilling, harvesting, transport.
Hence i've developed an interest in Direct drilling techniques but dont have the scale to do it ourselves

monoculure does make management easier but you get very financially exposed. consider splitting the cropping ground at least between 2 crops with the 2nd half just offset by a year.

get your soils sampled and see what you really have to work with.

merryberry

Thanks the replies folks. I was doing a bit of thinking in the meantime and decided that sowing winter wheat is just not an option for me...did the sums and way too costly. Had a root around at home and found old soil samples from 1997 and P’s & K’s were all Index 1 with the odd K index 2. This was addressed, to some extent, under REPS 1 (along with lime)...the question is has it depleted in the meantime. I suspect so...silage crops removed, some spring barley and I know by the way the land was farmed from here to fore (very extensively) that an increase in P & K is unlikely. I’m deffo gonna soil sample this week. Got quoted €12.50 inc VAT form IAS Carlow. Half the price that Teagasc are charging! The saving I’d make on chemical Nitrogen wouldn’t cover the cost of bringing the soil up to the desired P & K level. Reading the agri press doesn’t hold must hope on high grain prices in 2012 (yeah WW crop will be harvested in 2013). No access to slurry plus a public water supply well on the farm that will limit the area of land (200m) where slurry can be applied. So no planting this back end.

I’m going to give the silage a thought though. I take your point Good Loser on renting out for another year...but I feel there is a satisfaction to be got from taking ownership and farming the land. Your suggestion is always an option away so I definitely won’t rule it out. John Boy thanks for your suggestions...yeah P’s & K’s...i’ll see how the soil sample comes back there could be up to €2000 in the difference between CAN only v Cut sward on 70acs with no organic inputs. It’s something that I shouldn’t ignore. I see silage bales for sale on journal for €15 ex delivery. Cut, bale, wrap and stack for ~€10/ bale add fertiliser = poor margins.

Once again thanks for ye’re thoughts.

Casinoking

Did you consider the option of share farming? It's something that suits someone who has significant off-farm commitments and can't invest the necessary time to carry out the often highly weather-dependent work involved in a tillage enterprise. It's a system we're involved in ourselves, whereby we do all the physical work on a block of land owned by someone else in return for a share of the profits, as opposed to being paid contractors rates. It also means you can stay involved in the management side of things, and maintain your single farm payment and any other farmer-related tax benefits.

JohnBoy

making bales for sale is a mugs game for sure.

if you've got good dairy men in the area you could have good inerest for a standing crop of grass.