Claydon Calculator

[warksfarmer]

Of course, where we disagree is that I think (hope?) it is possible to increase the fertility of your soil, so that the optimally profitable system yields a better financial return.

I agree but just think its very difficult to alter the 'make up' of soil within a persons working life. Soil has been created over millions of years so the theory about feeding the crop to achieve your target yield while not damaging the soil also is worthy of consideration ......

 

[dontknowanything]

I agree but just think its very difficult to alter the 'make up' of soil within a persons working life. Soil has been created over millions of years so the theory about feeding the crop to achieve your target yield while not damaging the soil also is worthy of consideration ......

Give me three years and I hope to prove you wrong.

 

[T Hectares]

To be honest a yield gain with the Claydon system, or any min till/direct drill etc.., doesn't really bother me in the first place. For the life of it I can't see why it is ALWAYS the first subject that farmers start talking about. If you move down this route it is, IMO, to have your soil benefit the most. Increase organic matter, increase soil life, reduce compaction etc.. Second item is a reduction in costs. What you gain from this is much bigger than the few extra kilos. Trials should end up with the financial result at the bottom line, not the yield as that is only important in the pub.

Yes I might be biased but all the machines that we have sold over here in Holland were to customers that wanted to improve their soils and reduce costs. Not increase yields. Rather chuck on twice the fertiliser and combine 15t/ha if you want to do that. It is possible.

The current farming generation only has the land on lend from the following generation. Take care of it like you do with your wife and it'll take care of you and prove to be a good future.

Niels, biased ?? it could come across as that, please dont make the lazy assumption often touted in these parts,that only dders can or have the ability to look after soils.
Its true that we only have the land on lend untill the next generation, our previous generation however, carried out the following un beneficial practices.
Stubble burning
Continuous Wheat
After the burning ban...
Ploughs
Power harrows
3rd cereals
Sold all the livestock
Super single tyres
In the last 14 years we have continuously mintilled, put tracks on the combine and cultivations tractors, floaters on the grain trailers sprayer and other tractors, wider tramlines, used copious ammounts of bio solids, Fym on straw for muck deals, Digestate and stubble turnips grazed by sheep.
We now have more diverse cropping including WW WB SB SO WOSR Fallow and occasional WB.
I feel our soils are in much better health than they were maybe 25 years ago, this work is never over and i look forward to using some cover crops, dding osr and not tramlining crops in the future, but i have a gut feeling that we will still be carrying out some form of cultivation on the bulk of our land, and i feel our soils will keep on improving.
Some of the nicest soils i saw last year were on an organic farm, it had been cropped for the last 30 years on a 2 year clover and grass/ 2 years arable cropping basis, they also ploughed everything and cultivated up to 10 times !! to control couch grass, the organic matter build up over the years had however left the soils in great shape to withstand this brutal assault of metalwork ( it just needed a dose of Glyphosate, a touch of N and a fungicide to finish the system off ;-)
You also Farm in Holland which must be one of the most intensively farmed / abused pieces of dirt in the world !!
Rant over.......

 

[Elmsted]

Yes they should. But PLEASE show me any trial that demonstrates higher profits from higher soil health? I am trying to find this data as part of my Nuffield, but I do not think it exists.

It isn't even possible to measure soil health, let alone the benefits that accrue from it.

Yield is THE driver for profits, if done appropriately for your farm. A while back I challenged @Elmsted to show me how growing 6t/ha of wheat on our land would be more profitable than growing 12t/ha, as he said it would be, but got no response. I would like to see anyone else try. We use 180kg/ha of N, normal spray programs etc.

IMO any insistence that yield is not the most important factor is a way of justifying a machine or a technique that results in lower yields, and does not recognise financial realities.

Sorry if this offends...

Does not offend. It merely shows you are not looking to profit but yield and assume this will drive profit.

So if say 6 tonnes cost £75 per tonne to produce. And growing 12 t/ha costs £125 per tonne. And the market price is £100 per tonne. Is what I am getting at. To which I replied last time. Thank you.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Does not offend. It merely shows you are not looking to profit but yield and assume this will drive profit.

So if say 6 tonnes cost £75 per tonne to produce. And growing 12 t/ha costs £125 per tonne. And the market price is £100 per tonne. Is what I am getting at. To which I replied last time. Thank you.

This is just playing with figures to suit. What if he grows 12t/ha at £75t?

Its mainly to do with potential yield and the cost of the potential yield. Generally variable costs are similar per ton around the world bar one or two exceptions.

 

[dontknowanything]

Does not offend. It merely shows you are not looking to profit but yield and assume this will drive profit.

So if say 6 tonnes cost £75 per tonne to produce. And growing 12 t/ha costs £125 per tonne. And the market price is £100 per tonne. Is what I am getting at. To which I replied last time. Thank you.

Sorry, this is just silly. The price is not £100/t. If it were, then all the calculations would be different. It is equally valid to say what if prices were £200 - what result would that come up with do you think? (Hint: 12t/ha is more profitable even with those growing costs)

 

[Feldspar]

Yes they should. But PLEASE show me any trial that demonstrates higher profits from higher soil health? I am trying to find this data as part of my Nuffield, but I do not think it exists.

It isn't even possible to measure soil health, let alone the benefits that accrue from it.

Yield is THE driver for profits, if done appropriately for your farm. A while back I challenged @Elmsted to show me how growing 6t/ha of wheat on our land would be more profitable than growing 12t/ha, as he said it would be, but got no response. I would like to see anyone else try. We use 180kg/ha of N, normal spray programs etc.

IMO any insistence that yield is not the most important factor is a way of justifying a machine or a technique that results in lower yields, and does not recognise financial realities.

Sorry if this offends...

Just thinking about the 6 t/ha vs. 12 t/ha scenario. Thinking very simplistically and putting in some fairly arbitrary figures, if your 12 t/ha brings in 1800 £/ha and costs you 900 £/ha to grow giving a profit of 900 £/ha. The most simple way to approximate going to a 6 t/ha production system is just to halve every cost and see where that gets you. Obviously you go to your 6 t/ha bringing in 900 £/ha and costing you 450 £/ha you immediately seem to be worse off because your profit is then only 450 £/ha rather than 900 £/ha.

Firstly, is halving everything doable? Half the fertiliser seems fine. Half the herbicide bill? If you are cropping every year then I'm not so sure. Black-grass doesn't care what you're spending on fungicides, it'll just increase in numbers regardless. Half the machinery spend? Still have to plant the seeds, go through with some fertiliser (although probably half the number of times), still need to spray but maybe only half as much. Again, it seems plausible and the labour costs come down by half too. Don't need the grain storage, but is that so easy to get rid off just like that?

So, let's just say that halving the costs is doable. From the fag packet calculations in the first paragraph it appears that isn't good enough. Assuming you those figures hold every year, year in year out then, on the 6 t/ha scenario, you would have to reduce your costs to zero to get to the same profit as the high input, high output scenario which is obviously a nonsense.

Do you justify the reduced profit by saying that the system is somehow more resilient or brings longer term benefits to the business? Doesn't obviously seem so prima facie. Certainly if everyone took the low input approach legitimate questions could be raised about whether the world could be fed even at today's population figures.

There are different ways of looking at the 6 t/ha figure or the 12 t/ha scenarios. One could say that the latter is unsustainable and so isn't a long term option, or to say that in reality you might aim for 12 t/ha but you'll very rarely get it. Alternatively you could say that you get 6 t/ha over the whole farm, but rather you don't crop the whole farm and grow opportunistically over part of the area. That way what you do grow yields well above 6 t/ha such that over the whole farm area the yield averages out to 6 t/ha.

But does that really work? Just say you get 9 t/ha on two thirds of the farm. To equal the profitability of the 12 t/ha scenario over the whole farm, your costs over that reduced acreage would still have to be absurdly low. In the short term at least, even if you hit only 10 t/ha, I can't see the argument for the 6 t/ha.

What am I missing? Very happy to have someone demonstrate where I've got it all wrong.

 

[Elmsted]

Just thinking about the 6 t/ha vs. 12 t/ha scenario. .
But does that really work? Just say you get 9 t/ha on two thirds of the farm. To equal the profitability of the 12 t/ha scenario over the whole farm, your costs over that reduced acreage would still have to be absurdly low. In the short term at least, even if you hit only 10 t/ha, I can't see the argument for the 6 t/ha.

What am I missing? Very happy to have someone demonstrate where I've got it all wrong.

There are principally two points to this I think. A lack of western European understanding regarding our cost base Of production. Coupled with the concept some costs are fixed and some are variable. We regard all as variable.

As regards my second point it is that the underlying asset value produces more than farming the land. If one walked out the gate in the morning.
Hence return on invested funds is underwritten. Just from our perspective.

 

[dontknowanything]

There are principally two points to this I think. A lack of western European understanding regarding our cost base Of production. Coupled with the concept some costs are fixed and some are variable. We regard all as variable.

As regards my second point it is that the underlying asset value produces more than farming the land. If one walked out the gate in the morning.
Hence return on invested funds is underwritten. Just from our perspective.

So you're basically saying Feldspar is correct?

 

[Niels]

You also Farm in Holland which must be one of the most intensively farmed / abused pieces of dirt in the world !! Rant over.......

Couldn't have said it any better myself. Ever so true. In 50 years farmers have managed to destruct their fine Polder soils to a level comparable with clay soils that have been farmer for hundreds of years.

Some of the nicest soils I have seen were on organic farms also, growing a lot of different crops including vegetables and plough plus lot of cultivations. They did use a CTF system for as much as possible though. Have also seen the result of organic plus non inversion and this performed an even better job. Something has to change and everyone knows it. Luckily a lot is done these days and everyone chooses their own path to achieve the same end result.

 

[dontknowanything]

Just thinking about the 6 t/ha vs. 12 t/ha scenario. Thinking very simplistically and putting in some fairly arbitrary figures, if your 12 t/ha brings in 1800 £/ha and costs you 900 £/ha to grow giving a profit of 900 £/ha. The most simple way to approximate going to a 6 t/ha production system is just to halve every cost and see where that gets you. Obviously you go to your 6 t/ha bringing in 900 £/ha and costing you 450 £/ha you immediately seem to be worse off because your profit is then only 450 £/ha rather than 900 £/ha.

Firstly, is halving everything doable? Half the fertiliser seems fine. Half the herbicide bill? If you are cropping every year then I'm not so sure. Black-grass doesn't care what you're spending on fungicides, it'll just increase in numbers regardless. Half the machinery spend? Still have to plant the seeds, go through with some fertiliser (although probably half the number of times), still need to spray but maybe only half as much. Again, it seems plausible and the labour costs come down by half too. Don't need the grain storage, but is that so easy to get rid off just like that?

So, let's just say that halving the costs is doable. From the fag packet calculations in the first paragraph it appears that isn't good enough. Assuming you those figures hold every year, year in year out then, on the 6 t/ha scenario, you would have to reduce your costs to zero to get to the same profit as the high input, high output scenario which is obviously a nonsense.

Do you justify the reduced profit by saying that the system is somehow more resilient or brings longer term benefits to the business? Doesn't obviously seem so prima facie. Certainly if everyone took the low input approach legitimate questions could be raised about whether the world could be fed even at today's population figures.

There are different ways of looking at the 6 t/ha figure or the 12 t/ha scenarios. One could say that the latter is unsustainable and so isn't a long term option, or to say that in reality you might aim for 12 t/ha but you'll very rarely get it. Alternatively you could say that you get 6 t/ha over the whole farm, but rather you don't crop the whole farm and grow opportunistically over part of the area. That way what you do grow yields well above 6 t/ha such that over the whole farm area the yield averages out to 6 t/ha.

But does that really work? Just say you get 9 t/ha on two thirds of the farm. To equal the profitability of the 12 t/ha scenario over the whole farm, your costs over that reduced acreage would still have to be absurdly low. In the short term at least, even if you hit only 10 t/ha, I can't see the argument for the 6 t/ha.

What am I missing? Very happy to have someone demonstrate where I've got it all wrong.

Had a look at the numbers from last years best field. To be as profitable growing wheat at 6t/ha it would have to have been produced for £12.50/t. This includes machinery costs, it's not gross margin.

That's a trick I would like to see...

 

[Feldspar]

Had a look at the numbers from last years best field. To be as profitable growing wheat at 6t/ha it would have to have been produced for £12.50/t. This includes machinery costs, it's not gross margin.

That's a trick I would like to see...

If you take the line that you can change system as long as it doesn't affect your yields (maybe allowing for a short term dip followed by improvements over the business-as-usual case after a few years), then you really need no-till to perform pretty much on a par with the conventional establishment techniques to avoid losing money.

What is your 750a field looking like?

Certainly ours looks much better now than the equivalent wheat planted at the same time. Doesn't look as good as our best bits of conventionally established wheat though. For me the obvious instance where no-till clearly pays is where, as we had last year, you have a late harvest of a crop like beans. If you're on heavy land you can't easily plough and get a seedbed within a week or so. If the harvested field is not too weedy and isn't compacted you face the option of a decent (but maybe not top notch) crop over a mauled in mediocre crop. Easy choice.

For us strip-till works fine in year 1, as does no-till from what I've seen. For someone who normally farms conventionally, they can buy a 750a, use it conventionally, and then no-till opportunistically in situations where they can transform a field from probably being one of their worst into an average or above average crop. Now I'm beginning to sound like Elmsted again.

 

[Elmsted]

Thank you Felspar in the positive way that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Joking aside great thread so step by step our way of looking at things.


100 hectare field owned by 50 people so we purchase 25 strips of varying sizes and they are randomly located in the field. As However it is impractical to farm we pay rent to the remaining 25 owners.
Rent is 500 KG of wheat and or Maize given to them in physical terms after growing the crop. Cost 500 Kg per hectare.

Then on planting for example wheat cost is 250 KG per hectare from previous years production. So we assume a base cost of land irrespective of us or they owning it at 500Kg hectare. This covers administration and labour costs of the farm in the bookkeeping. Plus the machinery value as we are effectively charging ourselves to farm land we already own.

Hope that is clear and step one.

 

[SilliamWhale]

If you take the line that you can change system as long as it doesn't affect your yields (maybe allowing for a short term dip followed by improvements over the business-as-usual case after a few years), then you really need no-till to perform pretty much on a par with the conventional establishment techniques to avoid losing money.

What is your 750a field looking like?

Certainly ours looks much better now than the equivalent wheat planted at the same time. Doesn't look as good as our best bits of conventionally established wheat though. For me the obvious instance where no-till clearly pays is where, as we had last year, you have a late harvest of a crop like beans. If you're on heavy land you can't easily plough and get a seedbed within a week or so. If the harvested field is not too weedy and isn't compacted you face the option of a decent (but maybe not top notch) crop over a mauled in mediocre crop. Easy choice.

For us strip-till works fine in year 1, as does no-till from what I've seen. For someone who normally farms conventionally, they can buy a 750a, use it conventionally, and then no-till opportunistically in situations where they can transform a field from probably being one of their worst into an average or above average crop. Now I'm beginning to sound like Elmsted again.

This is the aim and generally is true. If you look for faults for either system (plough based or no till) you'll find them. I say sometimes yield is less ,sometimes more, mostly the same.

 

[warksfarmer]

Thank you Felspar in the positive way that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Joking aside great thread so step by step our way of looking at things.


100 hectare field owned by 50 people so we purchase 25 strips of varying sizes and they are randomly located in the field. As However it is impractical to farm we pay rent to the remaining 25 owners.
Rent is 500 KG of wheat and or Maize given to them in physical terms after growing the crop. Cost 500 Kg per hectare.

Then on planting for example wheat cost is 250 KG per hectare from previous years production. So we assume a base cost of land irrespective of us or they owning it at 500Kg hectare. This covers administration and labour costs of the farm in the bookkeeping. Plus the machinery value as we are effectively charging ourselves to farm land we already own.

Hope that is clear and step one.

Not clear. Are the landowners giving you the cash equivalent back for the seed or is that your cost and they just take 500kg/ha as the rent?

So say wheats £100/t they are getting £50/ha rent?

 

[dontknowanything]

@Feldspar our 750a field looks super. Very clean, and if tall wheat yielded well, it would be a real winner! The field it is on is about bang on average, so would expect 9-9.5t. Could very easily be more if we get some rain at grain fill. Problem is it was drilled 3 weeks later than adjacent fields, so comparison will not be totally valid.

 

[Feldspar]

@Feldspar our 750a field looks super. Very clean, and if tall wheat yielded well, it would be a real winner! The field it is on is about bang on average, so would expect 9-9.5t. Could very easily be more if we get some rain at grain fill. Problem is it was drilled 3 weeks later than adjacent fields, so comparison will not be totally valid.

Do you think the cleanliness of the field has been affected by the establishment technique?

 

[dontknowanything]

Do you think the cleanliness of the field has been affected by the establishment technique?

I'd like to think so, but have no evidence of the fact. Should have cultivated a strip down the middle.

 

[Elmsted]

Not clear. Are the landowners giving you the cash equivalent back for the seed or is that your cost and they just take 500kg/ha as the rent?

So say wheats £100/t they are getting £50/ha rent?

No cash or crop back from land owners they as you write just take 500KG as rent. It does mean as you write they get a rent linked to the price of wheat.

Growing crops are 100% our cost.