Wheat Input costs per T 2019

[warksfarmer]

Seed/Fert/Sprays only.

£36.74/tonne of wheat dried over a weighbridge and early tests suggest group 1 spec.

£53.48/tonne of wheat straw over a weighbridge.

Also if of interest, although need to clarify.
Osr £38/tonne
Forage rye (silage) £4.16/tonne
Forage rye (combined) £16.83/tonne
Grass (silage) £2.78/tonne
Grass (hay) £8.64/tonne

 

[ajd132]

So are you saying fuel is a fixed cost for drying grain?

It’s not a direct growing cost which is what this excercise is looking at.

 

[Werzle]

I thought it might be interesting to compare inputs costs on Wheat this year ? we could look at otter crops like OSR as well if successful

I know this has been tried before on TFF and like any bench-marking consistency in how we compare numbers is vital to it making any sense. So if Outline my methodology in this first post maybe others can try the same and we can get some useful comparisons ?

So taking ALL variable costs per hectare on my wheat this year to include - Seed (plus royalty and cleaning if FS), Fertilizers (N P K FYM / composts etc) Herbicide, Insecticide, fungicides, growth regs, trace elements, desiccant, slug pellets

then divide by yield in tonnes per ha to get your input cost per tonne

ie. £400 spent on inputs / 8t/ha = £50/t for example


might be even more interesting if we wanted to break that down to a figure for each variety grown ? it could help us all pick the higher margin varieties

Good luck with this, you arable boys are more refined than us livestock men who only fall out on here when some poor soul decides to post costings and then is branded a liar/bullshi##er or clueless. Perhaps there should be an unwritten rule that you cannot comment on others costings until you have posted your own!

 

[lloyd]

It’s not a direct growing cost which is what this excercise is looking at.

It might not be a direct growing cost in your area but a probable necessity in
the north of the UK.
How do you cost PH correction?

 

[B'o'B]

It might not be a direct growing cost in your area but a probable necessity in
the north of the UK.
How do you cost PH correction?

It not a growing cost because you don’t do it when the crop is growing.

 

[Clive]

Fuel and labour are variable costs for accounting purposes

Not in my crop costings they are not even though they are of course variable like most costs are - you would never see fuel in a crop gross margin calculation

But it doesn’t matter as long as we compare in same basis which I set out in post 1 fit exactly this reason - the reason that has historically ruined every TFF benchmarking thread ever !

 

[Clive]

I’m not sure how some of you run business I really don’t !

This is basic stuff

 

[Clive]

It might not be a direct growing cost in your area but a probable necessity in
the north of the UK.
How do you cost PH correction?

Lime is a multi year variable cost - crop recording software like gatekeeper will divide cost over multiple years - for us that’s 5 years which is our average liming interval and is in the numbers I posted earlier

 

[Clive]

It might not be a direct growing cost in your area but a probable necessity in
the north of the UK.
How do you cost PH correction?

All fixed costs are probably necessary ! Unless you like sobering money pointlessly

Fuel, labour, drying, insurance, repair, service, depreciation all vary every year but they are in accounting terms FIXED costs

 

[Clive]

I can't really contribute as I don't have weighbridge.

Fair enough but most have ability to make a decent estimate of yield ? Measure heap ? count trailers etc

You will know when you sell it all

 

[Grass And Grain]

Osr £38/tonne

Wow, that's impressive!

Most people would spend more than that on fert alone. Would be interested to know how you achieve that. Well done.

Back to the thread, my average feed wheat cost/t was about £60 this year. Yields held back by drought.

 

[Clive]

Wow, that's impressive!

Most people would spend more than that on fert alone. Would be interested to know how you achieve that. Well done.

Back to the thread, my average feed wheat cost/t was about £60 this year. Yields held back by drought.

I think the £30-50/t is where it should be looking at replies so far

Much above that and you are either paying to much, using products that are not returning their cost (bad advice). Or optimistically applying for unrealistic yields

 

[CORK]

I think the £30-50/t is where it should be looking at replies so far

Much above that and you are either paying to much, using products that are not returning their cost (bad advice). Or optimistically applying for unrealistic yields

Perhaps a slightly sweeping statement there Clive?

Just because someone spends more per tonne produced doesn’t make the above observations valid.
One might be in the south west and gets a good value for straw, or is on land with big yield potential and high disease pressures.
In these cases, the profit margin per Ha can be bigger than the guy producing for £30/tn which at the end of the day is what matters most.

The cost per tonne is an interesting and useful metric but is certainly not enough to judge whether a grower is spending too much or not.

I will work out my own when I get a chance at the weekend. I also wonder if we should be discussing these figures in public - it’s useful information for the grain buying trade.....

 

[Clive]

Perhaps a slightly sweeping statement there Clive?

Just because someone spends more per tonne produced doesn’t make the above observations valid.
One might be in the south west and gets a good value for straw, or is on land with big yield potential and high disease pressures.
In these cases, the profit margin per Ha can be bigger than the guy producing for £30/tn which at the end of the day is what matters most.

The cost per tonne is an interesting and useful metric but is certainly not enough to judge whether a grower is spending too much or not.

I will work out my own when I get a chance at the weekend. I also wonder if we should be discussing these figures in public - it’s useful information for the grain buying trade.....

profit (nett margin per tonne) will ultimate have a lot more to do with fixed costs than these variable costs discussed in this thread which for most will be less than half or even a third the cost of actaully growing that tonne of wheat


I do agree however gross £ output per ha is another key metric, straw as you say is very valuable for some as is milling wheat vs feed wheat etc both of which do justify a higher spend to achieve. However I have kept this comparison as simple as possible as if too many variables (such as gross £ outputs) are introduced then comparisons become hard and pointless. If we look at £ output then it would mostly be down to when you sold / priced the wheat this year and not what you spent or what the yield was

 

[A.R.]

seed/chems/fert
W.Wheat
Graham 36.48
Dunston 38.66
W.Barley
Orwell 40.62
OSR
F/Saved Campus 92.43
S.Oats
Elyan 29.39

 

[Colin]

"Here" we don't spend a huge amount on herbicides (0.3 liberator, 0.1Dff and probably 0.75 Spitfire) wild oat control on everything and wheat get 200kg N, but major cost is fungicide. The problem as we all know is that most of this is prophylactic and we don't know what the weather is going to do over the next few months. I could probably save £60+/ha by trimming back to basics but what could this cost in yield in a bad year? Then again you get years like 2012 where blockbuster programmes were undone by ear diseases that we can only get 50% control of at best! Not sure what the best tack is. There doesn't seem to be a wonderful variety out there that doesn't have at least one problem. Sundance is good for disease but sprouts too readily for "here".
Have a strip trial in one field where T0 alto elite + MnDF was substituted with a nutritional product and the part with the fungicide has looked better all season, so we cant go to far, starting point as always is good genetics.
The rye is interesting as it is inherently low input and grows well on poor soils, it is doing 10t against wheat at 8.5 for a £100/ha lower spend. Also a lot of straw which adds about £100/ha of benefit to me as well. BUT its a small market.

 

[Properjob]

Wow, that's impressive!

Most people would spend more than that on fert alone. Would be interested to know how you achieve that. Well done.

Back to the thread, my average feed wheat cost/t was about £60 this year. Yields held back by drought.

I would to be interested how that is achieved as well! Can't be correct as even if a remarkable 2t/acre crop then that is only £76 per acre. Typical fert spend for most, even with farm saved seed there is nothing left for a herbicide, fungicide, desiccant (which presumably you would need with a low herb spend). If that has been the case then you wouldn't risk growing OSR without herbicides of any fungicides year in year out so nothing to learn.

 

[Properjob]

Our wheat spend would be £49-52/t this year. Now I have said that perhaps I am free to comment. There is a massive problem with people posting the variable costs per ton unless in the same geographical area. There is nothing to learn from a farmer in the Borders comparing fungicide spend to a grower on the West coast of Ireland. We are all capable of shopping around for fert deals, farm saving seed etc. Every farm will have its own different weed problems, which will alter over time depending on chemistry used, not a lot that can be done on the cost of this other than buying keenly and getting the right advice. So the only real variable and biggest cost related to variety is fungicide spend and this only relevant if there is controlled data to compare, not someone's cost per ton posted on the internet. Niab/Tag do a good disease pressure scoring system, each variety is listed according to response, location is pressure scored, sowing date taken into account and spring weather and finally sprayer capacity. From this you can work out whether you should be spending £60/ha-130/ha on fungicides. With respect to feed wheats, then fertiliser and herbicides are not variable although are variable costs. When choosing which variety surely look at local trials and which treatments resulted in the most cost effective yields for any given variety. I really think gross margins are a much more useful benchmark as someone growing 3t/acre at a cost of £38/t using a standard price of £130/t will have GM of £276/acre, 4t/acre at £50t variable costs will have a GM of £320. If the reason the latter's cost per ton is higher because they are applying more fert due the sale of £80 acre straw then the GM could £400/acre. This equates to £120+/acre difference. However masked in this is the high fungicide spend due to crop being grown in the West. For me cost per/t is far too simple to base any decisions with respect to variety choice or benchmark from, unless in the same area and soil type.

 

[Clive]

Our wheat spend would be £49-52/t this year. Now I have said that perhaps I am free to comment. There is a massive problem with people posting the variable costs per ton unless in the same geographical area. There is nothing to learn from a farmer in the Borders comparing fungicide spend to a grower on the West coast of Ireland. We are all capable of shopping around for fert deals, farm saving seed etc. Every farm will have its own different weed problems, which will alter over time depending on chemistry used, not a lot that can be done on the cost of this other than buying keenly and getting the right advice. So the only real variable and biggest cost related to variety is fungicide spend and this only relevant if there is controlled data to compare, not someone's cost per ton posted on the internet. Niab/Tag do a good disease pressure scoring system, each variety is listed according to response, location is pressure scored, sowing date taken into account and spring weather and finally sprayer capacity. From this you can work out whether you should be spending £60/ha-130/ha on fungicides. With respect to feed wheats, then fertiliser and herbicides are not variable although are variable costs. When choosing which variety surely look at local trials and which treatments resulted in the most cost effective yields for any given variety. I really think gross margins are a much more useful benchmark as someone growing 3t/acre at a cost of £38/t using a standard price of £130/t will have GM of £276/acre, 4t/acre at £50t variable costs will have a GM of £320. If the reason the latter's cost per ton is higher because they are applying more fert due the sale of £80 acre straw then the GM could £400/acre. This equates to £120+/acre difference. However masked in this is the high fungicide spend due to crop being grown in the West. For me cost per/t is far too simple to base any decisions with respect to variety choice or benchmark from, unless in the same area and soil type.

cost per tonne is cost per tonne - we all sell to the same market !

Yes an Irish farmer or one in the south west etc might need to spend more on fungicide BUT that because its wetter so he will probably also get more yield than a guy in the dry east this year who was hit buy drought


ultimately no 2 farms are the same however so somethings some farmers are simply stuck with higher costs or lower yields they can do nothing about - but the comparisons are still useful becuse as I say we all sell our wheat into that same market

 

[Clive]

I would to be interested how that is achieved as well! Can't be correct as even if a remarkable 2t/acre crop then that is only £76 per acre. Typical fert spend for most, even with farm saved seed there is nothing left for a herbicide, fungicide, desiccant (which presumably you would need with a low herb spend). If that has been the case then you wouldn't risk growing OSR without herbicides of any fungicides year in year out so nothing to learn.

My OSR works out at £74./t with N fert being £38/t that so also interested in how @warksfarmer got so low ? Mine was FSS, N and herbicide - so nothing else I could really do any less and a respectable for season (1.6t) yield