# More record land prices here in PA



## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Two farms at public auction about 15 minutes from me. Word is the black hat mennonites bought them.

2.225 Million for 86 acres and 1.755 million for 66 acres. Both farms were rough with no modern buildings.

Makes a young guy like myself want to throw his hands up in the air and give up...

http://www.martinandrutt.com/auction-archives/


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Do them guys secretly manufacture $100 bills or what? Wow.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Over 25,000 per acre?? Is there gold in them thar hills?

I know the feeling about throwing your hands up . . .


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Right in that little area farms bring big bucks cause those people want to stay within their community. Problem is they are branching out. Some will move 5-10 miles over toward me cause the land ONLY brings 16,000 an acre here.

Dad is getting his farm appraised right now because I might be buying some of it. Well how do you get an accurate appraisal??? Last winter I saw a farm sell for just under 16,000/acre. This winter its at 25,000/ acre. Thats a big swing!


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Crap, that's nothing. Record prices? 
Down here that's chump change. 
Over $125,000/ acre is normal


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## Supa Dexta (May 28, 2014)

I'd be selling in no time flat. Move somewhere new and double, or tripple in size, put new buildings up and till have money to live..

I don't understand how prices like that can be paid unless its getting turned into residential or malls or something..

I get land for free around here and can hardly make money off it. ha


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Supa Dexta said:


> I'd be selling in no time flat. Move somewhere new and double, or tripple in size, put new buildings up and till have money to live..
> 
> I don't understand how prices like that can be paid unless its getting turned into residential or malls or something..
> 
> I get land for free around here and can hardly make money off it. ha


That's what some Amish land owners are doing. They sell their multi-million dollar 100 acre farms to developers, take the money and move to the Midwest and buy 300 acres.


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## discbinedr (Mar 4, 2013)

Supa Dexta said:


> I'd be selling in no time flat. Move somewhere new and double, or tripple in size, put new buildings up and till have money to live..
> 
> I don't understand how prices like that can be paid unless its getting turned into residential or malls or something..
> 
> "I get land for free around here and can hardly make money off it. ha


"
There's your answer. Some of the best dirt in the world.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

That's nuts guys, they pay obscene amounts for acreage, then I hear all the time a lot of guys in PA get their hay ground for "free" just for keeping it mowed. Some folks in PA must have deep enough pockets that regular folks would drown in em.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

I won't pay ground rent. At least not for mulch hay. 
I look at it this way: 
If they had to pay someone to cut it 2-3x per year, they'd pay thousands to have it cut. 
I can come in and cut it 2-3x for free.
I see that as a win-win.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

A lot of the farms around here are being bought with "old money". Not sure how long that will last...

Dad and I are having a debate on land rent right now. I maintain his entire farm at my cost. That includes new fencing cost. I am only allowed to have the land in hay and pasture. Now he thinks on top of all the maintenance costs I should be paying rent. Rent on hilly swamp and woods just doesn't pan out. Esp when the largest field of the 80 acres is 7 acres. Oh, and he already uses my gas and diesel in his equipment. Gotta love the family.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Hehe, a buddy bought a brand new McCormick awhile back, wasn't bad enough his parents were letting other family members and friends "borrow" it but they were charging them to use it and keeping the rental fee.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

deadmoose said:


> Do them guys secretly manufacture $100 bills or what? Wow.


Well when you don't pay income tax....


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Atleast they did it at an auction and not a funeral home. ...


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

I actually emailed all my farm financials to my parents and said "Here, show me where there's money to pay rent." They didn't say much

We had the appraiser out to go over the farm and put a value on it. I said to the appraiser. "Now suppose instead of these nice pastures and hay fields everything was run down. Beat up fences, brushy fencerows, etc etc. Would the value be different?" He looked at me with a kinda dumb look and said "of course"

Steam was coming out of my Dad's ears. He knew where I was going. I paid to get the place all fixed up over the last 10 years, now I gotta buy it at the much higher price...


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## PaCustomBaler (Nov 29, 2010)

Lol, love the story mlappin. Guess everyone has to make a little money! Sorry PA guys, don't know what to tell you. Unfortunately none of us can change anything about land prices, just nature of the beast fellas. I'm not getting in the middle of a family fued though...


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

For you PA guys. In the areas where there is gas and oil drilling and fracking are they including mineral rights in these very pricey sales? Or is that some of the reason the price per acre is so much. I actually don't know if where they are drilling there is good ag land or not.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

This land that sold has no minerals/gas on it. That is all up in northern pa. We do still have a strong Ag Preservation program here that will pay around $3,000/acre for the development rights. So that will get back at most around $240,000. But that is if you are a top rated farm, which these weren't. Also, you have to get on a waiting list. They could apply now and not get into the program for years...


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

PaMike said:


> A lot of the farms around here are being bought with "old money". Not sure how long that will last...
> Dad and I are having a debate on land rent right now. I maintain his entire farm at my cost. That includes new fencing cost. I am only allowed to have the land in hay and pasture. Now he thinks on top of all the maintenance costs I should be paying rent. Rent on hilly swamp and woods just doesn't pan out. Esp when the largest field of the 80 acres is 7 acres. Oh, and he already uses my gas and diesel in his equipment. Gotta love the family.


Not trying to lecture you or anything, but try to take the high road and patch things up. My dads been gone 4 years now. I'm about to lose my mom. 
More painful than you can imagine.
Your dad is probably looking at selling his farm as a retirement neat egg.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

deadmoose said:


> Do them guys secretly manufacture $100 bills or what? Wow.


They pool their money much like the decendants of Israel. They finance expansions and their young who want to carry on their traditional lifestyle.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

PaMike said:


> Right in that little area farms bring big bucks cause those people want to stay within their community. Problem is they are branching out. Some will move 5-10 miles over toward me cause the land ONLY brings 16,000 an acre here.
> 
> Dad is getting his farm appraised right now because I might be buying some of it. Well how do you get an accurate appraisal??? Last winter I saw a farm sell for just under 16,000/acre. This winter its at 25,000/ acre. Thats a big swing!


We figure around here approx. $2000/acre. Just had my house appraised and the appraiser was questioning me about land prices. I personally thought $2000 was on the low side but it's not. Granted the quality lacks. Most is wet needs tiled. Very little high quality gravel and if your lucky to have it you won't ever let it go.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

JD3430 said:


> Not trying to lecture you or anything, but try to take the high road and patch things up. My dads been gone 4 years now. I'm about to lose my mom.
> More painful than you can imagine.
> Your dad is probably looking at selling his farm as a retirement neat egg.


Actually Dad's retirement nest egg was the business that my business partner and I are buying from him at full appraised price....He doesnt have anything to worry about financially for the next 30 years or so, and hes already almost 70. The poverty story used to work on me till I bought his business. I know how much I am paying him!


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

Know the family thing at our place the family owned 4 farms next to each other 100 acre's each I was born and raised on the dairy farm and worked there all my life in the mid 80,s we had to buy them out , my parents 1 uncle and 2 aunts . Mom and Dad were very reasonable the rest wanted appraised value . We were mad they got them for free and wanted full price . My old man said sign the agreement of sale, on all 4 farms asap or you will never farm there again. I was jealous cause I had to pay for what my uncles and aunts got for free , We were young my wife was worried about the debt she would cry at nite after she put the kids to bed . We worked hard got it paid in 20 years. Also 3 years after we owned it ,it was worth 5 times more than we paid for it. I am so glad we bought it most times you only get the chance once


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I know the situation well.....a good neighbor was dying with cancer and came to me and said, " you and your father meet with me"...we did and he said he wanted $400,000 for his farm...this was back in the nineties. I just could not see any way it would pencil....we declined. It sold at auction for about 500,000....then less than ten years its value went up 600%. I regretted it.....but the moral of my story is that if you can anyway possibly buy land....do it....it will more than increase in value....the first half of the annual payment terms may be a struggle but the second half of the terms will be much, much easier.

So, getting something to "PENCIL" is much more involved than financially meeting payments....it also must include the ability to see LONG TERM......it is called VISION.

He who has young ears, let him listen.

Regards, Mike


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Vol said:


> I know the situation well.....a good neighbor was dying with cancer and came to me and said, " you and your father meet with me"...we did and he said he wanted $400,000 for his farm back in the nineties. I just could not see any way it would pencil....we declined. It sold at auction for about 500,000....then less than ten years its value went up 600%. I regretted it.....but the moral of my story is that if you can anyway possibly buy land....do it....it will more than increase in value....the first half of the annual payment terms may be a struggle but the second half of the terms will be much, much easier.
> 
> So, getting something to "PENCIL" is much more involved than financially meeting payments....it also must include the ability to see LONG TERM......it is called VISION.
> 
> ...


So true. Land cannot be valued unless you value it for its highest and best use. Farming isn't always the highest and best use for land. 
I would think it would be smart to buy say 150 acres. Set 100 aside for farming, then sell 50 off to a developer or for commercial highway frontage, etc. to help offset initial costs. 
As Mike said, you have to pencil in future value. 
The classic timeline in MY area is that farmers with children disinterested in farming will dies off, leave the land to the kids, kids sell land to developers for 3-5 million bucks and become over note millionaires.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

With my dads passing it was agreed that I was buying the cattle and machinery and renting the buildings and land with rental money going toward down payment of land and buildings. With the low milk checks of the early 2000, toward the end just could not keep up with the high payments. Mom would say If your Dad did it so can you but in the beginning dad had Grandpa and his brother. Later, it was dad and Grandpa. I just had hired help. I should have kept a cool head and talked with people to try different things but being to "proud" and "I can do this myself" just didn't work. Lost $30,000 in potential down payment when I quit not to mention what I had put into the field those years. Now after being rented for 9 years the place is trashed. Every building needs new roofs, floors are shot, beams broken in sheds, walls smashed with loader tractors and I am the lucky one who gets to fix it all. It will take a while to bring it back up to dads standards. Live and learn. Just ranting.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

I have been pushing to make plans and buy land. My wife is a CPA so for her its all about the bottom dollar. Why buy land when you can put it in Vanguard and get 5% return. Kinda hard for me to deal with. I would rather invest in land and have something over investing in some stock market company that I have never heard of.

My parents just refuse to see the big picture. I was pushing to do some rental agreement with some of the rent going towards the purchase price. If I started to buy their land they would then have additional cashflow to buy my grandparents land. My grandma is 92 and owns 50 acres next to our business. I don't want to see the land leave the family so we need to make plans NOW for the future...


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

PaCustomBaler said:


> Lol, love the story mlappin. Guess everyone has to make a little money! Sorry PA guys, don't know what to tell you. Unfortunately none of us can change anything about land prices, just nature of the beast fellas. I'm not getting in the middle of a family fued though...


Oh it gets better, my buddy remodeled the milking parlor, then added new milkers, automatic takeoffs, another bulk tank etc. Then his mom and dad tried to charge him rent on his own stuff since it was in they're building.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

PaMike said:


> I have been pushing to make plans and buy land. My wire is a CPA so for her its all about the bottom dollar. Why buy land when you can put it in Vanguard and get 5% return. Kinda hard for me to deal with. I would rather invest in land and have something over investing in some stock market company that I have never heard of.
> 
> My parents just refuse to see the big picture. I was pushing to do some rental agreement with some of the rent going towards the purchase price. If I started to buy their land they would then have additional cashflow to buy my grandparents land. My grandma is 92 and owns 50 acres next to our business. I don't want to see the land leave the family so we need to make plans NOW for the future...


That money in Vanguard at 5% can disappear overnight as well. Land prices might go down for awhile, but at least you still have the land. Well that's until Uncle Sam takes over, but that's for another thread.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Oh I know it. My wife just doesn't get it. My family went into the great depression very wealthy cash wise, and owned several farms. They came out of it with the least desirable of all the farms, the one we still have.

Its just a shame to have this land and not be able to keep it in the family due to a lack of planning and forethought...


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Can you work a deal with township to put it in a land conservancy (if they have one)?
Down here open space is preserved with tremendous tax breaks. 
My wife and I plan to sell and buy a farm. 
What they will do is allow you to break off say like 3 acres and the house and tax them like any other house, then the "back 40" goes into conservancy. You still own it, but it must remain open space. Your reward is a tax bill of like $1 or some obscene low number.

I think its different down here though. Farming down here is the exception. Where you are, it's probably the rule. 
For me, it's more sensible to own a small farm, big enough to park equipment, build a storage barn for a lot of hay, but I really can't see the point in owning a large parcel of hay land, unless I lucked into a large conservancy parcel. Maybe 10-20 acres enough room for 10-15 steer and I'm good. 
I don't envy some of your situations. I'm a 100% capitalist, but I don't think wages and salaries have kept up with expenses enough for us to have enough money to buy property like we could 50 years ago.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Your right about land prices and wages. 50 years ago lancaster county was a back woods conservative farm community. Now its on the edge suberbia and demand is nuts.

Dad bought two eight acre building lots that border our farm back when I was a kid. The other day I asked him how he aquired them. The neighbor split them off the farm and put them for sale with a realtor. He called the realtor and bought them. Currently land like that doesnt even make it on the market. If it does go on the market its because they are listing it for some obscene price.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

JD3430 said:


> So true. Land cannot be valued unless you value it for its highest and best use. Farming isn't always the highest and best use for land.
> I would think it would be smart to buy say 150 acres. Set 100 aside for farming, then sell 50 off to a developer or for commercial highway frontage, etc. to help offset initial costs.
> As Mike said, you have to pencil in future value.
> The classic timeline in MY area is that farmers with children disinterested in farming will dies off, leave the land to the kids, kids sell land to developers for 3-5 million bucks and become over note millionaires.


I shed a tear or three every time I see this happen. Such a shame when a beautiful farm field turns into small acreage lots.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Another farm sold today. $22,500/acre on 80 acres. Preserved farm. Livable house. Rest of the buildings were rough....

I consider myself a tough hardworking guy but numbers like that just make me hang my head and kick the dust. Last winter similar farms were just under $16,000/acre. That was rough but might have been a possibility, but $20+k an acre is just insane..


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

That is insane....


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

deadmoose said:


> I shed a tear or three every time I see this happen. Such a shame when a beautiful farm field turns into small acreage lots.


Some of that around here. Actually alot, not so much nowadays. We live in a dying county in which more people are dying or moving out than are being born or moving in. Only problem is they aren't moving out or dying fast enough.....


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Another thing PaMike is your willing to bust your arse for it and earn it to keep it going and to keep it in the family. Where others get the place given to them and have no ambition or desire to farm and run it into the ground and squander their parents hard earned money and are basically freeloaders till it runs out then sell everything and piss that away too


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

IH 1586 said:


> With my dads passing it was agreed that I was buying the cattle and machinery and renting the buildings and land with rental money going toward down payment of land and buildings. With the low milk checks of the early 2000, toward the end just could not keep up with the high payments. Mom would say If your Dad did it so can you but in the beginning dad had Grandpa and his brother. Later, it was dad and Grandpa. I just had hired help. I should have kept a cool head and talked with people to try different things but being to "proud" and "I can do this myself" just didn't work. Lost $30,000 in potential down payment when I quit not to mention what I had put into the field those years. Now after being rented for 9 years the place is trashed. Every building needs new roofs, floors are shot, beams broken in sheds, walls smashed with loader tractors and I am the lucky one who gets to fix it all. It will take a while to bring it back up to dads standards. Live and learn. Just ranting.


Not to mention the weather sucked a couple of those years especially '03. Definitely would be tough for anyone under those circumstances to make a go of it. Good to hear your getting it back. It was a nice clean kept up operation at the auction you had. Seems thats the way it goes when something gets rented out around here. No respect


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I'm having a real hard time wrapping my head around this, seems like a lot of the ground in PA you can get rent free if it has some sort of hay on it and you mow it to make it look pretty, but it sells for $22,500 an acre?

While here we pay for everything, but my father and I can't make paying $6000/acre for a 200 acre farm pencil out...

A rather large hay grower in the area is paying upwards of $300/acre for irrigated ground to grow alfalfa on.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

PA is a wierd state. Around me you CANT find ground to rent. It just doesnt come available. If it is its 500-600/acre rent on larger parcels that are owned by the government and put up for bid.

Go 2 hrs away or farther to areas like where Grif lives and there is land free for the use.

The guy that bought this has a tanker truck and hauls a lot of waste water out of Tyson and a cheese plant. They are allowed to dump the water on the fields, so he can help pay for the farm by the disposal fees he charges his customers.

What I cant get is how he actually has enough cash to make it happen. I mean is it THAT PROFITABLE of a business?? How much can you really gross with a tanker truck? Even if he had 500k down he still has a 1.3 million mortgage. Thats somewhere around $9,000 a month!


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

mlappin said:


> I'm having a real hard time wrapping my head around this, seems like a lot of the ground in PA you can get rent free if it has some sort of hay on it and you mow it to make it look pretty, but it sells for $22,500 an acre?
> 
> While here we pay for everything, but my father and I can't make paying $6000/acre for a 200 acre farm pencil out...
> 
> A rather large hay grower in the area is paying upwards of $300/acre for irrigated ground to grow alfalfa on.


Who pays for the irrigation costs? Here the avg. price is $20/acre. If you have gravel maybe upwards of $30/acre. Had a farmer move into the area for a few years and offered $50/acre. Bought a nice set of discs at his auction. Grandpa got the small square baler.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

IH 1586 said:


> Who pays for the irrigation costs? Here the avg. price is $20/acre. If you have gravel maybe upwards of $30/acre. Had a farmer move into the area for a few years and offered $50/acre. Bought a nice set of discs at his auction. Grandpa got the small square baler.


Here the renter pays the irrigation costs as well.

Our friend in town has been irrigating for a LONG time so his OM is up over some of the ground that has just been put in irrigation, he expects 200b/a corn every year and 60 b/a beans. Of course he inherited a cool million when his father passed away so everything is always paid for, money goes a lot farther if you don't have interest payments to make.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

mlappin said:


> I'm having a real hard time wrapping my head around this, seems like a lot of the ground in PA you can get rent free if it has some sort of hay on it and you mow it to make it look pretty, but it sells for $22,500 an acre?
> While here we pay for everything, but my father and I can't make paying $6000/acre for a 200 acre farm pencil out...
> 
> A rather large hay grower in the area is paying upwards of $300/acre for irrigated ground to grow alfalfa on.


I like to take my old Kawasaki Voyager for a ride on a Sunday morning if you're not busy . I am always amazed if I go an hour and 20 minutes north or maybe an hour and 20 minutes south it's two different worlds as far as farming is regarded


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

MLAPPIN 200acres @ 6k I can see these Amish that cant find land here .Would Buy that tract split into 4small dairy farms, Plus 3 houses with a wood shop or a metal fab shop somewhere along the edge where the land isn't tillable, plus a school house . That would be what they would call a nice 7 family "Church District"


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

endrow said:


> I like to take my old Kawasaki Voyager for a ride on a Sunday morning if you're not busy .


I always thought those Vulcan Voyagers were nice bikes.

Regards, Mike


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

endrow said:


> I like to take my old Kawasaki Voyager for a ride on a Sunday morning if you're not busy . I am always amazed if I go an hour and 20 minutes north or maybe an hour and 20 minutes south it's two different worlds as far as farming is regarded


Don't even need to go that far here. Soil type and drainage change alot and is very variable. Any direction from the home farm and the farther you get the wetter and poorer it becomes it seems. Even I one feild it can change drastically. One place we farm the one end of the feilds are good and dry with good soil get a third away across it turns to heavy clay


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

Our home farm has 100 tillable acres. There are 6 different soil types ranging from sandy loan to heavy gray clay. One end of the farm has sandstone, the other end has white limestone. It makes yields highly variable and farming challenging.


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