# Lease is up



## Flacer22 (Oct 31, 2009)

Our lease with farmer is up this year and they have contactrd us about a new lease sadly I'm not sure I can handle doing it myself but wanted some input on what people who rent land think?

We lease as a family 250 tillable acres. Of that there is one field I'm thinking about not re signing and attempting to do myself it is right at about 25 acres and boarders quite a bit of my current hay ground. Although this is kinda my land I'd still have to pay rent technically. The land is in a trust that is owned by my aunt uncle and mom but trust is then willed to me and my brother so its mine but not mine. With that said I'd have all the control I want as its my land just downside of I'd still need to pay the trust the rent. So I'd need to match what we are currently getting which is 225 an acre.

I'm currently doing 30 acres on our farm that's not included in the 250 as its to steep and smaller odd shapes to do row crops in but as mentioned that land boarders some of field I'm thinking about taking. Right now all my hay ground is very steep to steep to really get any high quality or top shelf quality hay so plus of this new field would be ability to get some better hay growing maybe. Other plus is this field is somewhat flat least its flat enough to pull wagons over where as now I drop all bales small sqs on ground and pick up with truck. Its also in good condition soil wise as its growing some 250 bussel corn atm so soil is not starved. 
My market around here is good last 2 years doing hay I've easily sold out my hay for an average of around 6 bucks a bale that being around 2000 bales of mixed grass and clover hay. Even sold a few barn kept 4x5s for 50 bucks. Mostly horse owners. 
I have 2 barns with hay mows I can store guessing around 7500 bales but they are mows gotta be put up old faished way. I can get around 60 rounds inside as well. 
My equipment is all decent no real gems all is used and seems to brake down but have been able to keep it all functioning so far.
Case 2590 180hp
Case 2090 110hp
Ford 4640 60hp
John Deere 459 round baler 
John Deere 328 square baler
John Deere 535 moco
Claas 75t 6 basket tedder
New Holland 56 rake
Pending buy of krone 42t rotory rake
328 john Deere skid steel with bale spear
410 john Deere backhoe
Gmc 1 ton truck 2014
10 ton equipment trailor
Broke hay elevator

I do have a full time job and do have some half way reliable help and few local kids I can hire as help. I've got a little money to invest but nothing major. Can also tent a drill local for 10 bucks an acre.

So question is at 225 an acre can I make any money I know somewhat loaded question alot of variables but curious what others pay for rent and what they have learned as to what kinda money one can gross per acre? I've calculated all my tons per acre money spent money made all that for last 2 years and with all that it appears I can make some money but with my limited experience and little data hard to trust that data for sure little to much apples to oranges right now.

Thanks in advance


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Well personally I'd never pay 225 for hay ground. In a year like this that money would be better of used as toilet paper. Most I pay is $125 an acre for hay ground, rents here can go as high as $350/acre or more for irrigated ground. I mainly rent ground that the owners want hay on it either for the aesthetics of it or the greatly reduced use of pesticides and herbicides. Other fields that I have in hay the thought of getting either a 30 foot air seeder in for beans or a 16 row corn planter in gives me a migraine just thinking about it.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

$225 is a lot. Here. How many bales/tons per acre on what fertilization schedule THERE?

I still think that $200 per acre is a fair selling price. Different time, different place.


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## Colby (Mar 5, 2012)

Geez I don't see how yall guys do it.... Our lease hay feilds are 20.00 an acre


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

Colby said:


> Geez I don't see how yall guys do it.... Our lease hay feilds are 20.00 an acre


Yea,I pay 25 for what little I rent.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Colby said:


> Geez I don't see how yall guys do it.... Our lease hay feilds are 20.00 an acre


Well here if it's not seed corn or green beans driving the rents up then it's a BTO thats being a greedy little piggy that has to farm everything in site. The guys high boy that hit the side of my truck was clear from Stevensville Michigan which according to Google Earth is an hour drive by car. So if we don't have enough idjits locally cutting each others throats by jacking the rents up every year we've started to import em now.

Sometime towards the end of June the local TV news caught up with one of those BTO's, he preceded to tell em that because of all the rain they had 3000 acres yet that had to be planted to beans, personally if they interviewed me after him I would of told em that we were done and having that much too plant yet is from being a greedy little piggy and having to farm everything in sight. I have foot tall beans next to ground they haven't even touched yet. Of course they mudded everything out last fall and all the ruts they left keep filling with water. It's real easy to farm a whole bunch in years like 2012 when you can just go go go and never a drop of rain in sight, takes a little more when you might not get to do anything for a week or two at a time because of the mud.

Once the first of July rolled around I would have just turned it all in as prevented planting as it couldn't be insured anyways as the end of June here is the cutoff for beans.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

And I think $225 an acre rent is too cheap.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Teslan said:


> And I think $225 an acre rent is too cheap.


Location location location. Some of my $80 ground is high and dry while some of the $300+ ground around here is under water this year.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

If it was me I'd be farming it all.If it grows 250 bu corn consistently its prime soil (200 comes first).Rotate the fields with alf or alf/ grass mix,corn and beans.The soil will benefit from the alf in the rotation and even produce more corn.

It sounds like some of the ground is poorer and isn't worth the $225 per acre.But for the good soil it should easily produce 6 ton of hay if it produces 250 bu corn so @ $225 per acres land cost per ton is under $40 per ton..

Marketing it would be my biggest concern.


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## Flacer22 (Oct 31, 2009)

Around here 275 is about as high as it gets there may be some bottom ground that's a little more but its few and far between and i dont know of any myself just a guess. avrage is 150. Our fields rent from 225 to 275. So yes out of our fields that one is poorer than others but mainly because its smaller and hard to get to its still very good crop ground for around here.

I cant farm it all myself hoping one day I can but currently I lack the equipment to handle that many acres and the cash to start up that many.

I don't know what kinda fertilizer schedule they use but I do know that it's yeilded 250 on corn last 2 years maybe a hair more. Out of the 15000 acres current farmer does we are the 3rd best farm he has for yeilds last year we made number 2. Also know that my hay fields lie down hill from them and I get alot of free run off fertilier.

I'm getting on my current land seems around 3 ton an acre but only began to fertilize about 5 weeks ago before that nothings been added besides run off for over 10 years. Also Ive sprayed alot this year and last year to control weeds. I can only assume on better flat ground I could plant some high quality hay on I could do alot better than 3 tons an acre.


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