(09-25-2021, 07:16 PM)jagibelieve Wrote:

(09-24-2021, 09:55 PM)homebiscuit Wrote: Very informative and interesting, SF.

Anyone remember this? 

'You put a seed in, you put dirt on top': Bloomberg suggests farming is easy in resurfaced comments | Daily Mail Online

That was the most insulting, condescending, idiotic and ignorant thing to ever come out of someone's mouth as far as I'm concerned.  I don't want to turn this political, but many people don't realize that it takes a lot of knowledge and skill to farm successfully.  Many will look at the huge number that a farmer "made" after selling a crop, but they fail to realize how much a farmer had to spend to grow the crop.  Equipment isn't cheap, maintenance doesn't do itself and if there is a break down you can't exactly call AAA and expect them to be there promptly.  While many farms are "multi-million" dollar operations, the farmer actually ends up earning a very modest income.

The same goes for ranchers that raise and grow much of our meat.  Cows don't take care of themselves.  They do require immunizations and other care, plus feeding them isn't just a matter of "letting them graze".  Horses don't "just work" they require training which takes time and effort and some of it can be painful.  They also require vet bills much higher than a typical pet such as a dog or cat.

Farmers and ranchers are up there in my "respect list" along with first responders.

People that think like that, think of growing things in terms of their backyard gardens or something. Yeah, there might not be a whole lot more to it when your growing 6 tomato plants but it's a little different if you have 50,000 vines. 

Just calculating the water usage each week alone takes some serious scratchpad work. Can't just turn on the garden hose for 20 minutes lol.

---

(09-25-2021, 07:41 PM)jagibelieve Wrote:

(09-24-2021, 11:05 PM)Senor Fantastico Wrote: Ha, actually never heard that before. The funny part is open ground farming like in the Midwest I feel is way harder. They make way less per acres, way thinner margin of error, and any slight miscalculation will put you in a big hole.

Like if I calculate my groundspeed a little wrong I end up wasting 10 gallons of fertilizer. Those guys will end up wasting like a 1000 gallons if they mess up. They have little flowmeter computers that tell them every second what they're using up in the tank.

I had the opportunity way back in my younger years to work on an "open ground" farm/ranch like you describe.  Of course, this was before the days of "double cropping" and our crop was alfalfa.  We used to cut with a sickle mower and bale with a square baler.  I used to be able to throw square bales around like they were nothing.  Nowadays I probably would need help to move one.  We had cows and sometimes they would get out and we would have to ride through the "woods" to round them up.  The "woods" were basically small cedar trees along with some pine trees (we called them pinion) and a lot of cactus, yucca and sage brush.

Just guessing, but I estimate that we probably used around 30% of the alfalfa that we raised and sold the rest as hay.

Oh for my younger years...

They still do it like that around here but it's a dying crop. The margin is a razors edge. 

And yeah, those bastards weigh like 75lbs when they're fresh cut, keeps the back strong haha.

---