Do any arable farms employ someone specifically for the night-shift?

[Tom H]

Useful advice as ever.

Did you use one of your full time employees to work the night shift when you weren't doing it? If you were doing it again using a harvest worker, how would you work out when interviewing whether that person would be up to it? What would you look for in their previous experience?

If planning machinery on the basis that it is worked overnight, how many acres would assume it would do in the night shift compared to the day? I assume slightly less? If you are budgeting on things being worked 24/7, what happens in a more difficult season where you don't have any wiggle room (especially as you say in that situation often things won't go at night)? Hire in more machinery / contractors?

How would you manage the scenario where you budget on a job happening at night, but then due to dew / whatever it turns out it won't go?

Would you consider doing two shifts but having a gap in the 2-4 am sort of period which seems to be the hardest?

Would you, if something breaks at 3am get up and go and sort it out, or would it be deal with it on the phone and if that wasn't possible stop for the night?

Would you just do it over the summer, or would you do it in the spring as well?

I had a full time on the day and a self employed person who wanted to do nights at night.

We budget 16.6 hours a day for a 24 hr working day, this take weather, break downs and bad days into account.

The reason I want to move back to 24 hrs is to get on top of it again. it creates the wiggle room.

I try and manage that the night shift has the better conditions, or have a job up my sleeve for them to do if the damp is an issue. it's budgeted in the 16.6. You will never get the amount done at night that you will in the day shift.

I tell them to ring me, here there's not such a thing as a stupid question. Normally I could short on the end of the phone. If not yes I would get up. If you don't like the thought of having to do that - I would leave it as a none starter. It also helps if you as a manager are experienced in the job as well as working the odd night too in the past.

Have thought 2-4 but to be honest I think if you have gone that far you might as well go the whole 24. It also works that the new shift driver turns up with the service trailer.

Make sure someone is taking responsibility for maintenance too. It is very easy to pass the buck in a double shift. Normally out going driver does the grease etc.They are dirty at the end of the day. have an hour at one of the shift changes for a good look at and cab clean is important. keeping on top of service the tractor too. you soon rattle through the engine hours and the oil needs to cool before it can be changed. We would get the night driver to finish early in the case.

Haven't needed to do it for cultivation, but when we were growing a lot of maize that was drilled 24/7 double shift.

 

[Tom H]

I think you're right on this one. 12-12 sounds absolutely fine for the person finishing at midnight but terrible for the person starting then.

You both could well be right, I just don't like the fact that the night driver was always just in the night. From experience when I did it, you would normally get a second wind at about 6 and not be able to sleep until the afternoon. 4-4 might work very well.

 

[Tomtrac]

If Any of you poor hard dun to boys in the east are thinking of working 24/7 to pay for your tackle i would gladly come over from the wet west and cover nights i even have an old camper van to sleep in throo the day unless you have a spare rooms in your mansion

 

[Feldspar]

You both could well be right, I just don't like the fact that the night driver was always just in the night. From experience when I did it, you would normally get a second wind at about 6 and not be able to sleep until the afternoon. 4-4 might work very well.

How sensitive is your thinking on double-shifting to the manner in which machinery is owned / run? If you had new machinery with a 1000/hr/year warranty that runs for 8 years (as per Fendt compared to if you owned some older kit with no warranty remaining, would that change your thinking?

In the former case, I would say it definitely would make sense because your marginal cost of operating the Fendt overnight will not include an increased breakdown cost, and potentially at this age the depreciation is more age sensitive than hours sensitive. On the other hand, in the latter case it might be the case that depreciation is mainly like to hours / condition and much less weakly linked to machine age, in which case the case for night working is much weaker, especially if the cost of labour overnight is a lot higher. This is likely to be the case if you are an owner operator with no employed staff, and to work overnight you suddenly have to employ outside labour. Where the cross-over point occurs is a more difficult question.