A “typical” American farm

[TZ441]

So i live in Corson County, South Dakota, in the USA. My dad, my grandpa (retired) and me run a ranch with a little over 400 head of red and black angus cattle. We have roughly 2,200 acres to run the cattle on, all owned none rented. Tractors we have a 2009 Case IH Puma 165, a 2003 Agco RT 150, and an older Deutz DX 160 that runs our old gehl feed grinder. We also have two older payloaders for moving hay, a 2012 New Holland L220 skidsteer, a 2014 New holland speedrower 160 swather with an 18ft haybine header on it, a vermeer hydrolic V rake, a 2014 New Holland Roll belt 560 baler, an older kenworth semi with a cattle pot and hay trailer. We also have a Haybuster bale processor for feeding cows in the winter. We also run 5 yamaha grizzley 700 ATVs that ussally get traded every 4 years. We typically put up over 3000 bales a year and haul all of them our selves. We have more older equipment then what i listed but i just put up what we use the most. We plant only about a 100 acres a year ussally a rotate between oats and a hay crop like hay bit barley or millet.

[Tylercheesey1986]

This thread is an awesome read. Its great to know how others farm IRL in other parts of the world.

[Idahofarmkid]

In eastern Idaho you can find anything from a 200 acre wheat farm to a 50000+ acre wheat, alfalfa, corn, barley, canola, and of course potato farm. I used to work for a farm that was spread through 3 areas but totaled 15000 acres. 1 7000 acre farm where I worked, another 5000, and a 3000. Another farm in the area that was started by the grandfather and has now become shared by the kids is about 30000 acres of mostly wheat, barley, and potatoes. Where I worked we had 2 JD 680 combines, 3 8370RT tractors, a 9560RT, a 9560R, 2 7215R JDs a old 4850 and 4455 and 7800 and 8410. And all the implements you could imagine. We grew wheat, barley, canola, and 4 -6 varieties of potatoes from mini fingerlings to russet burbank's.

[dapals51]

It’s hard to nail down a typical American farm, because there are several different regions. I am part of the corn belt similar to Illinois farmer, just In NW Iowa. But if you move out of the corn belt you get different crop rotations along with different geography even with in the corn belt. I primarily grow Corn and Soybeans here with 3600hd of hogs along with custom round Baling, equipment is a John Deere 9670 combine, a John Deere 8430, a 7530 Premium , and 2755 for tractors, run a 12 row planter 1760, disk 637, 980 field cultivator, Demco 850 bushel grain cart, and a semi and hopper bottom trailer. John Deere 568 baler.

[aklein]

I'm curious why west of the Mississippi in the OP. I would think that would skew the results to larger operations myself.

There are plenty of farms east of the great river. Where I grew up and live currently it is not uncommon in the country so be able to stand and see up to a half dozen individual farms all within sight of each other. I would say the further east you go the more common smaller single family owned and operated farms exist. Not that there are such small farms in all parts of the country but the 'mega' farms as I call them with multiple harvesters and such are not something I have seen here on the east coast.

[MarkDeere205]

I am a seasonal worker on a 7300 acre farm in mid Michigan. I work during planting and harvest. There are 6 full time employees including my two sons. This year we have 4000 acres of soybeans and 3300 acres of corn.
Most of the equipment is John Deere including 3 9750 combines, 1 9760 combine, 6 9000 series articulating tractors, 3 smaller tractors, 2 corn planters and 2 bean drills. They have 2 grain carts. 1 Brent and 1 Unverferth. They have 6 semi trucks of various brands.

Soybeans are harvested, grain carted to the semis and transported directly to the mill. Corn is harvested, grain carted to the semis and then transported to the farm for drying before it goes to the mill.

Planting season is 2-3 weeks and harvest is 5-6 weeks.

I run a soil finisher in the spring. In the fall i run a grain cart during beans and then chisel plow behind the corn harvest.

[Deadeye]

I'm curious why west of the Mississippi in the OP. I would think that would skew the results to larger operations myself.

There are plenty of farms east of the great river. Where I grew up and live currently it is not uncommon in the country so be able to stand and see up to a half dozen individual farms all within sight of each other. I would say the further east you go the more common smaller single family owned and operated farms exist. Not that there are such small farms in all parts of the country but the 'mega' farms as I call them with multiple harvesters and such are not something I have seen here on the east coast.

Very good point! In my region, 6 or 700 acres is a quite big farm. I'm in Northern Pennsylvania, so definitely the East Coast. My Uncle and Grandfather work for a farm that farms a couple thousand acres between Pennsylvania and New York State (I'm about 25 minutes from the border) That said they are an exceptionally large farm for my area. Most of that ground is also leased. Basically, it all depends on the individual farm.

[Jonhinkerton]

I had asked about western farms just because I was thinking of the kind of operation that would use a map like Welker or Dahl in-game, as opposed to an eastern map like ravenport or new woodshire. They seem too different to generalize both together for sure.

This thread has sent me down a drag behind rabbit hole trying to understand all these different rippers and discs and chisels and such.

[Riven326]

https://youtu.be/vB8zYLucTO8

https://youtu.be/EGRVwlTe65E

[FarmCatJenkins]

Check out 10th Generation Dairyman on Youtube also. He runs a smallish dairy farm not too far away from me with some interesting videos.

[brinko04]

My buddy's farm that I work part time on runs with 3 full time people and 2-3 part timers (myself and family) during harvest.
2500 acres of corn/soybeans combined - 70% irrigated, mostly no-till, 30 inch row spacing for corn/15 inch for beans
2500 hogs - farrow to finish
20-25 cows
1 s770 combine - 12 row 30 inch corn / 40' flex draper
9430/8335r/8200/7420/6430/4430/4230/4020/3010 john deere tractors
John Deere 36 row corn planter / 16/31 split row john deere planter for beans
34' sunflower disk / 42' field finisher
2 Demco 650 grain carts
3 semi's with 42' grain trailers
4730 john deere sprayer
around 280,000 bushels in grain bin storage
3 weeks to plant/6-8 weeks to harvest (all depending on weather)

Soybeans are cut first, followed by corn. It's usually a 70% corn to 30% bean ratio. 2 years of corn, 1 of beans; rinse and repeat. Combine never stops, grain carts catch and unload on trucks; trucks dump at bin site and come back. Throw some cows and a heavy disk on some of the more compacted corn on corn ground. Pump the lagoon and spread it, run it through center irrigation.....and back to planting/spraying.

Hogs require feeding 2 times a day, which is done on timers. Usually "grind"pig feed every other day; 3-4 batches at 8000 lbs. per batch.
Cows are fed a mixture of corn bales and hay bales.

Located in Nebraska, United States

[Idahofarmkid]

I also forgot to mention for just farm employees on the biggest farm we had 5 full time employees and the 5000 acre had 3 and the smallest had 2. During planting they would bring in about 40 total part time employees, 30 guys from the local prison work camp,
and 10 h2a employees from Mexico that stayed from April to November. But we also did a lot of production too because this farm had their own commercial potato warehouse which had about 40 full time employees and 10 semis with belt trailers, which most all of the big farms in Idaho do. There's very few co-ops left. So they bought and sold from the smaller farmers as well. The spring we cut and processed all the customers potato seed. And in the fall for potato harvest we needed so many part time people because we dig potatoes a lot different then the game presents by using either 4 or 6 row wind row implements, 2 to each harvester. The harvesters don't have on board storage so it was directly from ground to truck so each harvester had 7 to 10 trucks dedicated to it all with their own driver. And the work camp crews worked in the cellar pits hand picking the dirt clods and vines and rocks of off conveyors as trucks unloaded. Our area actually lets kids out of school for 2 weeks for harvest break because a lot of high school kids get jobs for potato harvest in the pit or driving trucks for other farmers. Our farm you had to be at least 18 to work on due to us using the work camp.

[ClassicTractors]

I worked on a hay farm this summer that baled +/- 600 acres.

How many workers?

3 including my boss

How many tractors?

4, max 130 hp

What kind of tools are owned vs. leased/borrowed as needed?

All our equipment was owned (tractors, mower, bailing equipment)

How is the product moved?

Flatbed truck and a gooseneck trailer

What trucks are owned vs. hired?

Can't answer this....we only had an HD 5500

Hope this helps a little

[Hogger]

Here are some YouTube channels to check out! How farms work, The rest of the story, Farming Fixing Fabricating, Brian’s Farming videos and Cole the cornstar! This will give you a good mix along with the others mentioned above about farming in the USA!

[ThatCanadianGuy]

It varies so much on region there is no such thing as a "typical" american farm, you would really have to pick a county and go from there because even in a state (or province if you are in Canada) it can vary.

When we farmed in SW Saskatchewan. We had 4,000 acres total, 2000 around the home farm, 1000 10 miles north and 1000 20 miles east. All but 1 of the workers had full time jobs outside the farm (I was the farthest away at a 3.5 hour drive from my home to the farm). People directly invested in the farm was 3 with up to another 4-6 hired family who would show up for a weekend or a month during peak seasons.

The bulk of out equipment was 3 combines, 4 trucks, 1 4wd tractor w/ airseeder and a sprayer. There was also a handful of "support" equipment to run things like the land roller, augers, ... Everything was owned.
We farmed small grains (wheat, mustard, lentils)