Cereals...gross margin at different yeilds?

[Bossfarmer]

The key to profit is a good net margin. We’re encouraged by the inputs industry that you have to speculate to accumulate and chasing extra yield with the latest varieties/fertilsers/biostimulants/fungicides etc which will dilute said costs. We are trapped in a hamster wheel of spending ever more, pursuing the kind of yields that we read about in Farmers Weekly but in reality the much smaller gains are more than outweighed by cost increases.

If you look at the regular UK wheat yield winner in the YEN group, Tim Lamyman, he spends £150/ha on biostimulants to get a yield in excess of that spend. He doesn’t achieve that every year and has withdrawn occasionally when the yield hasn’t covered that extra. When he does get the very high yield, his cost of production is very low.

Going back to net margin, there are no till growers making more overall margin from 3.5 t/ac low input crops with one small tractor than a higher input subsoiler, plough, press, power harrow then cultivator drill, all towed by high hp tractors doing 4.5 t/ac. I’m not saying that the plough is evil - as a break crop between root crops on silt or sand soils you need to put steel in to fix compaction.

is compaction not a bigger issue on heavier soils?

 

[teslacoils]

is compaction not a bigger issue on heavier soils?

No. Innate slower infiltration / waterlogging is the issue. Folk say compaction but it isn't really. Bit of surface compaction occasionally from harvest operations perhaps.

Mostly it just takes longer for the wet to get down and through the drains than for the rain to top it back up. So the old plough get the wet away from the seedlings at the cost of a springtime driving on chocolate pudding, or you can have a firm surface by doing less, but in my experience you don't want an above average wet winter.

 

[Bossfarmer]

No. Innate slower infiltration / waterlogging is the issue. Folk say compaction but it isn't really. Bit of surface compaction occasionally from harvest operations perhaps.

Mostly it just takes longer for the wet to get down and through the drains than for the rain to top it back up. So the old plough get the wet away from the seedlings at the cost of a springtime driving on chocolate pudding, or you can have a firm surface by doing less, but in my experience you don't want an above average wet winter.

heavier soils are going to struggle to do much this spring with the winter were having? weathers shocking

 

[teslacoils]

heavier soils are going to struggle to do much this spring with the winter were having? weathers shocking

No, we often come out of winter with saturated soils and drains running. Although we do usually have fewer spring acres to drill. Just need a "average" spring.

 

[Two Tone]

My Agronomist and I always enter the Syngenta Warwickshire platform Fungicide trials competition. Very rarely indeed is it that the highest yield ever wins. Usually it is the third highest yield that wins. You have to remember that this is a Fungicide program competition and it is margin over fungicide costs that wins it.

Syngenta used to want us to use a susceptible variety, but over the last 3 years we have persuaded them to get real and use a relatively resistant variety.

There can also be a huge difference between Gross Margin and Profitability. But on the whole good yields, generally mean higher profits. Fixed costs are in reality far more variable than Variable costs. Getting them under control is the biggest key to profitability.

 

[ajd132]

My Agronomist and I always enter the Syngenta Warwickshire platform Fungicide trials competition. Very rarely indeed is it that the highest yield ever wins. Usually it is the third highest yield that wins. You have to remember that this is a Fungicide program competition and it is margin over fungicide costs that wins it.

Syngenta used to want us to use a susceptible variety, but over the last 3 years we have persuaded them to get real and use a relatively resistant variety.

There can also be a huge difference between Gross Margin and Profitability. But on the whole good yields, generally mean higher profits. Fixed costs are in reality far more variable than Variable costs. Getting them under control is the biggest key to profitability.

Although saying that, looking at some of the yen programs that are pushed in the press variable costs are also very variable!

 

[Wombat]

No, we often come out of winter with saturated soils and drains running. Although we do usually have fewer spring acres to drill. Just need a "average" spring.

plus they take a while longer to warm up so we quite often have wheat tillering in May to make up for the fact its a bit punished over winter

 

[Wombat]

heavier soils are going to struggle to do much this spring with the winter were having? weathers shocking

heavy land is a different mindset, if you leave it alone it will fix a lot of its ills. Don;t abuse it or as Tesla says the infiltration rate will be mm/month. We have some heavy land thats just been tickled with the discs back in sept thats drier than some lighter that doesn;t structure as well.

 

[teslacoils]

heavy land is a different mindset, if you leave it alone it will fix a lot of its ills. Don;t abuse it or as Tesla says the infiltration rate will be mm/month. We have some heavy land thats just been tickled with the discs back in sept thats drier than some lighter that doesn;t structure as well.

I've got some arable reversion. Been low input grass for 12 years or so. Huge om. Low bulk density. But it's clay so right now it's bloody wet!

Yeah, we can drill spring barley in April and still be rolling it a few times in may to make it tiller. 2018 showed us we can grow a spring crop with under an inch a month and high temps.

All these promises of an extra 1.5 degrees heat just sound great for us. It is late march before evaporation exceeds precipitation.

Most heavy land farmers have the gear to tred gently and cover ground quick.

 

[T Hectares]

I compared some costs for '19 Wheat with a grower on similar soils taking a lower input approach
130kg/ha N v 240kgN/ha
35% lower spend on fungs

The gist of the results were he spent 25% less on VC's but my yield was 33% higher, that gave me a £460/ha better GM

There's lots of variables to make sense of within that, but a higher level of inputs seems to pay here, not saying it's right or wrong, but that's a lot of cash!!

I think farming with less inputs takes as much or more knowledge than farming with more, I'm using less than I did 5 years ago for sure, ditching second wheats and WB in favour of SB helps a lot too, but cutting back too much, at least without any environmental money behind it to assist, can be costly, but something that's going to happen no doubt...

I'm on relatively infertile thin chalks, reducing N probably has a bigger factor on yield than less fung, @ajd132 maybe in a better situation on his Hanslope clays, and being in a lower disease pressure area??

 

[ajd132]

I compared some costs for '19 Wheat with a grower on similar soils taking a lower input approach
130kg/ha N v 240kgN/ha
35% lower spend on fungs

The gist of the results were he spent 25% less on VC's but my yield was 33% higher, that gave me a £460/ha better GM

There's lots of variables to make sense of within that, but a higher level of inputs seems to pay here, not saying it's right or wrong, but that's a lot of cash!!

I think farming with less inputs takes as much or more knowledge than farming with more, I'm using less than I did 5 years ago for sure, ditching second wheats and WB in favour of SB helps a lot too, but cutting back too much, at least without any environmental money behind it to assist, can be costly, but something that's going to happen no doubt...

I'm on relatively infertile thin chalks, reducing N probably has a bigger factor on yield than less fung, @ajd132 maybe in a better situation on his Hanslope clays, and being in a lower disease pressure area??

We are on no way ‘low input’ but probably a sensible approach I hope. When I talk about low input it’s more where I aiming for as I am very aware the chemical pipeline is drying up and we could well be restricted on fertiliser use, so it’s more trying to learn for the future and being prepared by seeing on a smaller scale what we can get away with.

 

[Farmer Fin]

Just been to a frontier 3D meeting today and one of the speakers started his talk with “Yield is king”. Had a little chuckle to myself having read this thread today.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I compared some costs for '19 Wheat with a grower on similar soils taking a lower input approach
130kg/ha N v 240kgN/ha
35% lower spend on fungs

The gist of the results were he spent 25% less on VC's but my yield was 33% higher, that gave me a £460/ha better GM

There's lots of variables to make sense of within that, but a higher level of inputs seems to pay here, not saying it's right or wrong, but that's a lot of cash!!

I think farming with less inputs takes as much or more knowledge than farming with more, I'm using less than I did 5 years ago for sure, ditching second wheats and WB in favour of SB helps a lot too, but cutting back too much, at least without any environmental money behind it to assist, can be costly, but something that's going to happen no doubt...

I'm on relatively infertile thin chalks, reducing N probably has a bigger factor on yield than less fung, @ajd132 maybe in a better situation on his Hanslope clays, and being in a lower disease pressure area??

Fungicide spend is a funny one as often hindsight makes a difference. There is definitely an element of insurance with fungicide - get a dry summer and all is fine and dandy. Get a wet one and the expensive fungicide will have been worth it

 

[Lincsman]

Just been to a frontier 3D meeting today and one of the speakers started his talk with “Yield is king”. Had a little chuckle to myself having read this thread today.

To be fair yield is king for Frontier, more supplies sold and more grain to market, and if they can convince the customers to take it up they are the winners

 

[Brisel]

My Agronomist and I always enter the Syngenta Warwickshire platform Fungicide trials competition. Very rarely indeed is it that the highest yield ever wins. Usually it is the third highest yield that wins. You have to remember that this is a Fungicide program competition and it is margin over fungicide costs that wins it.

Syngenta used to want us to use a susceptible variety, but over the last 3 years we have persuaded them to get real and use a relatively resistant variety.

There can also be a huge difference between Gross Margin and Profitability. But on the whole good yields, generally mean higher profits. Fixed costs are in reality far more variable than Variable costs. Getting them under control is the biggest key to profitability.

I participate in the Dorset version (with @ZXR17 ) and for the last few years, especially the high disease ones, the highest spend has won. Our team won it 3 years in a row by spending the most until we got a low disease year and other teams copied our strategy. We switched to something more “commercial” and have been in the top 5 since, despite using lots of Syngenta products

 

[Hindsight]

You’ll never see it because all the press are in the back pockets of the advertisers. The input industry has absolutely shafted farmers over the last 30 years and it’s a massive environmental disaster. I hope it comes back to haunt them at some point. They’ve midsold to us all and we’ve lapped it up due to fabricated trial data.

Biggest profit comes from stripping back the business infrastructure to start with. Then late drilling, seed off the heap, spring herbicide, 2 x cheap fungicide. 180-200kg N & S and then walk away.
No T-sum program, no P & K, no snake oils and admit what your soils max yield is and then grow accordingly. Average wheat yield in the uk is 3.3t/acre. Since when has any of the yield records been profitable?

You are such a spoilsport.

 

[Hindsight]

Yield does seem to be a major factor in profit...

I'm considering trying a low input idea next yr... little N ... minimum fung and just cleaned seed ..

Worth a go !

Cornwall!? Wet?! Select the correct variety then a first decision. Resistant to Septoria. Suggest you do not compare your situation to Lincolnshire. But your call. Best of luck.

 

[Hindsight]

Part of the problem is easily understood metrics farmers to use as comparison in the pub and on social media platforms. Yield per acre/hectare is easy for all to understand, in any language, readily comparable. I have yet to go to a pub and hear farmers say to each other over a couple of pints at harvest 'I say old chap how is your wheat gross margin this harvest, mine is £650.01 per hectare', or whatever. I went to the penny as pub yields tend to be to the third decimal place these days! So in effect yield is king.

 

[40 series]

Forget turnover ,its LEFTOVER that counts in any system. High yields can be achieved with max inputs but just like the gambler who only talks about the winners the input industry never mentions the trials that go pear shaped !!!

Turnover is vanity profit is sanity cash is reality

 

[cousinjack]

Cornwall!? Wet?! Select the correct variety then a first decision. Resistant to Septoria. Suggest you do not compare your situation to Lincolnshire. But your call. Best of luck.

I meant minimum fungicides for our area..
I agree septoria is our major problem, but there's still room for less inputs..
or at least, less than we traditionally have used..