New combine cost

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
We have dropped from 2 combines to 1 across combinable 5000ac, freed up an extra person and lots of capital. More efficient and cost effective to extend the working day and use the dryer than run two machines. We would aim to start cutting by 8am and stop by 10pm, quick blow down and everyone home. Dryer can cope with taking out 5% at 93tph, less cost compared to a large combine, more versatile and more margin for any contract work, especially as we can dress malting barley etc so add value for the customer.
Mad
If you cant afford two combines on 5000 acres you should be giving up
 

BigBarl

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
South Notts
We gave up combining a few years ago and got a neighbouring contractor in - best thing we’ve ever done. We put the combine money towards a big grain trailer and cart for the contractor now with our tractor so that his man can get on with ground work etc. Works well, means we have no hassle with maintaining and servicing a combine, have more cutting capacity than we could ever afford and also get some cost back from the combine contractor for our carting services. This drastically reduces our combing bill and, capital to one side, our harvest operations on 200ha are now cheaper, faster and easier than they were when we used our own machine. So in reply to the OP’s question, if you’re cutting a big area I can see the appeal but consider working with neighbouring farms / contractors first before you tie up £250k in depreciating metal.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Who mentioned anything about not running this farming business 100%?
However, If I can’t get the satisfaction I want from farming the way I want to farm it, I’ll get out of it fast.
Nobody is forcing me to farm and while I enjoy it, it is my personality preference to continue to do so.

Pride and happiness are personal values are indeed personal aspirations. But once they are gone, I’ll do something else.

There may be a lot of farmers heading for a massive financial reality check.
Some of us are way ahead in not only the planning stages, but putting it into action to alleviate such problems.
This can give us an even greater sense of pride in having done so.

If you aren’t wealthy enough to at least have some fun in what you do God help us all!


As for comparing using Contractors making Silage for Dairy farmers, I see little comparison in relying on them to get my arable harvest in!
When it comes down to it and our ultimate financial income, it’s like relying on the same contractor to do the milking too!

We don’t all have to run Combines less that 5 years old to get the harvest in. If we know our way around a tool box, they aren’t that difficult or expensive to fix and run. Mine is 10 years old and has only ever see a main dealer mechanic twice in its life. The Contracting it has earned makes it almost FOC to me.

my issue (and therefore reason to CONSIDER a contract harvest option) is not the cost of the machinery it’s the massive Labour peak that harvest causes which is very difficult to solve without a significant increase in my fixed cost structure ………. Which would be a very bad business decision

I take my pride / pleasure in running a efficient and hopefully profitable business
 
Thats efficiency

I see very inefficient 🤷🏻‍♂️. You’ve still got a corn cart driver and you’ve still got a combine operator. The ‘combine’ might be cheaper but look how much slower it’s going and how little it’s actually cutting compared to a 35ft proper combine.
Even if there was modern versions of this contraption you still ‘need’ a driver. Clive’s trying to work around labour not machinery so this kind of setup won’t help his quandary.
He probably needs 2 or 3 contractors that will cut and cart so his staff can be in the yard putting the grain into the sheds whether directly or via the drier. 3 contractors cutting on the same day would see in excess of 200ac harvested assuming they are all running machines cutting 70 ish ac per day.
 

Drillman

Member
Mixed Farmer
there is an awful lot of combine capacity that never turn a wheel during harvest as they are between owners.
it just needs someone with the right business model and the right set of bums on seats and a lot of corn could be cut very quickly.

Of course achieving what I said above isn’t that simple!
 
there is an awful lot of combine capacity that never turn a wheel during harvest as they are between owners.
it just needs someone with the right business model and the right set of bums on seats and a lot of corn could be cut very quickly.

Of course achieving what I said above isn’t that simple!

I think APH started off doing this and claas do it as well.

The machines that are unallocated at harvest are so because everybody is sorted so there isn’t the market for them.
 

farenheit

Member
Location
Midlands
I see very inefficient 🤷🏻‍♂️. You’ve still got a corn cart driver and you’ve still got a combine operator. The ‘combine’ might be cheaper but look how much slower it’s going and how little it’s actually cutting compared to a 35ft proper combine.
Even if there was modern versions of this contraption you still ‘need’ a driver. Clive’s trying to work around labour not machinery so this kind of setup won’t help his quandary.
He probably needs 2 or 3 contractors that will cut and cart so his staff can be in the yard putting the grain into the sheds whether directly or via the drier. 3 contractors cutting on the same day would see in excess of 200ac harvested assuming they are all running machines cutting 70 ish ac per day.
I'd want 500 acres a day with 3 contractors at least.
 
Mad
If you cant afford two combines on 5000 acres you should be giving up
Why would you think that? Do we need two combines? No, so there isn't any reason to have two. We are lucky with large fields, 250-300ha cropping blocks that are by and large all accessible with the header on. The grain storage was centralised 20 years ago and has been updated with a new dryer that is capable of far more than the combine. The dryer is expensive, but not as much as a second combine and the combine only works a few weeks a year, the dryer can do contract work 12 months of the year. My point was capital investment sometimes isn't about the biggest shiniest largest machine fleet but what part of the operation the capital expenditure will realise the most value. If Clive had a contractor come in the knowledge that up to 22% he can deal with the grain however fast it comes, wouldn't that be more attractive than trying to get wet grain into outdated small stores with large machinery?
 
I'd want 500 acres a day with 3 contractors at least.

So your going to find 3 contractors who can cut 166ac each on the same day. They’ll all be running the Claas 8900 or JD X9 and all 3 will have chaser bins and enough tractors, trailers and drivers to potentially shift 2,000 tonnes.

Good luck with that.

A more realistic view is 3 contractors running used rotaries or large straw Walker machines that’ll do 70ac a day each.
 
Why would you think that? Do we need two combines? No, so there isn't any reason to have two. We are lucky with large fields, 250-300ha cropping blocks that are by and large all accessible with the header on. The grain storage was centralised 20 years ago and has been updated with a new dryer that is capable of far more than the combine. The dryer is expensive, but not as much as a second combine and the combine only works a few weeks a year, the dryer can do contract work 12 months of the year. My point was capital investment sometimes isn't about the biggest shiniest largest machine fleet but what part of the operation the capital expenditure will realise the most value. If Clive had a contractor come in the knowledge that up to 22% he can deal with the grain however fast it comes, wouldn't that be more attractive than trying to get wet grain into outdated small stores with large machinery?

Spot on.

One question though is how are you getting crop into the drum at 8am and 10pm because we can’t get anything to feed in as it just wraps around the header auger and then we just spend time stationary with the reverse header clutch engaged. Admittedly it’s a standard header and not a macdon etc but even the new claas convio doesn’t like it as shown in Olly Blogs video yesterday in spring barley.
 

redsloe

Member
Location
Cornwall
my issue (and therefore reason to CONSIDER a contract harvest option) is not the cost of the machinery it’s the massive Labour peak that harvest causes which is very difficult to solve without a significant increase in my fixed cost structure ………. Which would be a very bad business decision

I take my pride / pleasure in running a efficient and hopefully profitable business
Careful Clive, in a minute you will be doing all the grain carting yourself as their won't be anybody else to do it!🤣
 

quattro

Member
Location
scotland
I think if your passionate/enjoy farming going and buying a new/second combine or whatever, and you can afford it what difference does it make?
theres lots of people spend loads of money on cars/ holidays etc
why does it have to be run 100% as a business
if you can afford it and it makes you happy wtf
id say most farmers are farming because there ruled by their heart and not by their brain (me included)
most other business oriented people would cash it all in for a better return
 
Last edited:

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Spot on.

One question though is how are you getting crop into the drum at 8am and 10pm because we can’t get anything to feed in as it just wraps around the header auger and then we just spend time stationary with the reverse header clutch engaged. Admittedly it’s a standard header and not a macdon etc but even the new claas convio doesn’t like it as shown in Olly Blogs video yesterday in spring barley.
You’ve never seen crimp done then?
I used to start cutting by 9am and that would be on 19-22% wheat, it was being dried anyway and it was amazing the amount that you got through before mid day when others would start and they’d still have to dry theirs anyway.
Barley and Oats are both nightmares for wrapping though but wheat doesn’t slow you own much.
 
We gave up combining a few years ago and got a neighbouring contractor in - best thing we’ve ever done. We put the combine money towards a big grain trailer and cart for the contractor now with our tractor so that his man can get on with ground work etc. Works well, means we have no hassle with maintaining and servicing a combine, have more cutting capacity than we could ever afford and also get some cost back from the combine contractor for our carting services. This drastically reduces our combing bill and, capital to one side, our harvest operations on 200ha are now cheaper, faster and easier than they were when we used our own machine. So in reply to the OP’s question, if you’re cutting a big area I can see the appeal but consider working with neighbouring farms / contractors first before you tie up £250k in depreciating metal.
Here in France co-operative working is much more common.
For example my all arable neighbour works by himself and uses a contractor with a Lexion 760. His contribution is to provide 2 big trailers to support the combine. Grain is handled by the local cooperatives.
He is also in a syndicate of farmers who between them own and use a Kubota with a hedge cutter permanently attached.
I think that UK farmers are more conservative and independently minded to go down this route.
 

renewablejohn

Member
Location
lancs
I see very inefficient 🤷🏻‍♂️. You’ve still got a corn cart driver and you’ve still got a combine operator. The ‘combine’ might be cheaper but look how much slower it’s going and how little it’s actually cutting compared to a 35ft proper combine.
Even if there was modern versions of this contraption you still ‘need’ a driver. Clive’s trying to work around labour not machinery so this kind of setup won’t help his quandary.
He probably needs 2 or 3 contractors that will cut and cart so his staff can be in the yard putting the grain into the sheds whether directly or via the drier. 3 contractors cutting on the same day would see in excess of 200ac harvested assuming they are all running machines cutting 70 ish ac per day.
But would you really need a driver. Your modern tractor can navigate itself from the data prepared by the swathing tractor. You would only need a swathing header to feed the 40 ft swath cut (ie 20 ft mounted tractor swather left in 2 rows) Auto tank full signal calling chaser bin being fed position data from combine tractor to allow driverless operation. Technology is available now its only the mindset that is different.
 

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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