Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

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humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

Some observations:
  • The increase in net worth has been pretty steady throughout the 3 years.
  • We seem to have gotten less contracts in later years. The biggest effect here is likely that the first year of contracting included a lot of plowing/cultivating/seeding/fertilizing in spring, while in later years, all of those have been done in autumn and thus tracked as income in previous year. Additionally first year included plowing contracts.
  • We see that harvesting income has increased considerably in year 2 and 3. One effect here is smarter harvesting when doing contracts, depositing grain until we have maxed out harvesting progress before selling the grain, to maximize the grain we got left over from the contract, and to save as much grain to be sold as we can until prices soar later. In the last year, we also get income from milk adding on to it, and our own fields has become noticeable bigger in year 2 and 3.
  • We also see that forestry income has been noticeably. That's a $258.381 income from wood, from our two land areas worth $572.894 in total, almost halving the cost of the land bought. It's a lot of work, but it does help economy considerably.
  • Consumable totals have gone down. Probably linked to contracts income. More contract income is likely from more fertilizer contracts, and that implies a considerable fertilizer cost.
  • For other expenses, we see we get higher expenses last year, as we've got more buildings with upkeep and a large tractor more expensive to maintain, but the difference is still small copmared to the net worth increase.
  • As for the net worth increase, we notice the cows have started to produce milk, so we have a steady income all year around. We also see the concentration of contracting to august/september. Less and less happening in spring.
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FSarndrone
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by FSarndrone »

F.O.R.D stands for First On Race Day I like ford better then I like chevy bt I hate Dripping Oil Dripping Grease Everyday
I love multiplayer :mrgreen: and John Deere :coolnew:
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Dairydeere
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by Dairydeere »

Haha. I’m a Chevy fan but I don’t complain about a Cummins engine. Fords are ok, just know the Duramax is top dog :biggrin2:
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humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

So. What's the plan for spring? Crop rotation wise, it seems good to sow Soybeans on both our fields now, as last crops were oilseed and cereal on both, just in different orders. If we keep that crop rotation we can get max +20% bonus when growing oilseed and cereal and only -5% penalty growing soybeans. That may leave us with straw 2 of 3 years, and wheat or barley for chickens 2 of 3 years if we need it. Think we'll go for that.

So each day until harvest season starts I will:
  • At midnight go through assets we're tracking in our statistics. Then sleep until morning.
  • If new month, get accounting info for last month before the records disappear.
  • Every morning care for chickens and cows.
  • Check egg drop point to see if we need another pallet.
  • Check contracts overview for last fertilize mission (we got the other one just recently)
  • Check if milk or egg prices seems decent. We're starting to get some to sell.
  • Check if our grass have reached full growth. Currently at stage 2 of 3. When full we need to start mowing it. Check weather to see if it's gonna rain soon, and if so consider waiting until after rain.
  • Check if we have 48+ calves. If so sell calves down to 45, so we keep free space for calves while not having to sell at every birth.
  • Check if weather and soil is ready for sowing. Likely awaiting sowing until late spring. Needs to be warm for soybeans, and there's some rain forecasted for late spring, and we'd like to sow while the soil is moist to see if it makes a difference. (Soybeans sowing season is May/June)
  • Once sowed, we will fertilize second step with manure.
  • Once first growth stage arrive we will fertilize last step. I guess harvest contracts may start about that time too.
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

Numbers are in for March and April.

Code: Select all

March 04:
                                                                          Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $  70.519     $ 3.541.946
    Investments: Lizard MKS 32 milk trailer  $ 68.000
                 Krampe Dolly 10L            $  9.000
                 3x Egg Pallet               $  3.000                     -$  80.000    +$    80.000
    Sold:        Lizard MKS 8                                             +$  23.962    -$    25.000
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$       6
    Animal Upkeep:                                                        -$     386
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     155
    Sold milk:                                                            +$   5.944
    Rounding correction                                                   -$       4
    Silo inventory: Type:  Liters: Price/1000: Value:       Total:
                    Barley  66.918  $341       $ 22.819     $  22.819
    Bales:   Grass Silage       66  $54        $ 14.256
             Hay Bales          51  $58        $ 11.832
             Straw Bales        59  $40        $  9.440     $  35.528
    Milk:                   56.279  $733       $ 41.253     $  41.253
    Total value of stored goods:                            $  99.600                   +$     9.355
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $  19.874     $ 3.606.301   = $ 3.626.175
    ================================================================================================================

April 04:
                                                                          Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $  19.874     $ 3.606.301
    Sold animals: (3 cows)                                                +$   2.187
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$      12
    Animal Upkeep:                                                        -$     378
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     156
    Fertilizer bought:  5.000 liters.                                     -$   9.600    +$     9.600
    Fertilizer used:    518 in, 3930 remain, 1.588 l used.                              -$     3.049
    Contracts income:                                                     +$   7.475
    Rounding correction                                                   -$       4
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $  19.386     $ 3.612.852   = $ 3.632.238
    ================================================================================================================
Not much happening. But we saw that we got quite a bit of milk, and having 8.000 liter max capacity got a bit repetative. Getting a truck costs a lot of money, but we opted for getting the trailer first. We have a strong tractor now, so a dolly will make us able to use the trailer before we can afford the truck, and the dolly is a small investment, which we can sell with little loss of cash once we do get a truck.

Milk prices is still dropping though, so hanging on to quite a bit of milk right now. Egg prices are increasing but was very low mid spring, so hoarding for now. If last year prices is a good indication there seems to be decent egg prices early to mid summer, and then there's a dip, and then the best price comes in late fall. If we see the same this year, we might sell in summer rather than waiting until fall. But we'll see. We've gotten some more egg pallets so we can hoard a bit.

In late spring, we have gotten the last fertilize contract, and on the last day in May we have 18% moisture and 10 degrees soil temperature and we've started sowing field 28 (what we've named extended field 19) early in the morning at 05:50. Will do field 27 (which is what we named our primary field built on top of field 24-26), right afterwards. Our efforts of smoothing out the terrain of field 28 last fall seems to have worked well. The field is still a bit steep where it's steepest, and there's some corners that are too sharp but we're not getting stuck or having issues getting our 6m seeder to access all the parts.
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

The parts of our field that had germination failures last spring have been fully fertilized already since last year. When we fertilize now, those fields take no further fertilizer and shows no graphic of it. I'm fine with it already being fully fertilized, but would be nice if graphics showed that I had dropped dung there anyhow. As it is now, it's a bit hard to see what spots I've missed spraying, and what spots are already fully fertilized.

Figured out that the statistics page shows the size of field I have actually fertilized, so it does not count overlap. However, due to parts of the field not being fertilized it doesn't count the size of the field. I can however use it to measure how big a part of the field I managed to grow on last year. For field 27 closest here, we now fertilized 3.54 hectares, of a field 3.61 hectares big. I'm pretty sure we covered close to all parts of the field here, meaning we failed to grow on 0.07 hectares last year, which is 1.9% of the field. Measuring this can be a way of calculating correct yields for crops, even if we do get germination failures. I'll try to not keep changing these fields anymore. We did change the fields a bit this year, on this field it got a bit smaller around the chicken coop, and it was slightly changed where we removed the shed, and where we smoothed out the field a bit close to the dirt road in the southwestern end. Field 28 was changed a bit due to smoothing out parts of the field so we had to re-plow. So if we're to get correct numbers, we need to wait 2 more years before the entire field is on the same crop rotation. I guess the parts with germination failures will still make that untrue though, as these patches count as fallow for that year.


Image
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

And then May is done too..

Code: Select all

May 04:                                                                   Cash flow:         Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $  19.386     $ 3.612.852
    Sold animals: (3 cows)                                                +$   1.843
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$      32
    Animal Upkeep:                                                        -$     374
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     159
    Contracts income:                                                     +$   2.429
    Rounding correction                                                   -$       3
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $  23.090     $ 3.612.852   = $ 3.635.945
    ================================================================================================================
There seems to have been very little frost damage this year. All our field germinated. But moisture has dropped to 10%. We should not have any freeze problems at time, so I guess drought is the only thing to worry about. At what moisture level should I be worried about drought damage? And is there some way I can water the field if I need to?

Our grass is now at full length, and we look to have weather to make hay if wanted. We'll get to mowing soon. We have also reached first growth stage, so we're ready for final fertilize step. However, we don't have manure stored up to do it, and if we wait until we do have it, we'll get to growth stage 2 and require narrow wheels which manure spreader doesn't have as an option. So I guess we'll use normal fertilizer. That will be a good measure to compare how much normal fertilizer we use though, which will give us a value for manure as a fertilizer.
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

Haha.. We used 1.123 liters of regular fertilizer for final fertilization step of field 27, meaning we used fertilizer for $2.156, and manure is thus worth as fertilizer $33 per 1.000 liter. If we manage to use manure for all our fertilizing on this field we save $6.468 per year, which is a nice figure, but it will take some time to pay back the $52.500 manure spreader. Lets calculate for other field too.

Edit: Used 898 liter of fertilizer for field 28 compared to 58.129 liters of manure, giving manure price of $30 per 1000 liter.

So if I manage to get manure enough to do all fertilizing in these two fields with manure, we save $11.641 per year, paying back manure spreader in 4.5 years, and from then on starting to earn money.

To do that I'll need 3x(65.475 + 58.129) = 370.812 liters of manure per year, or 10.300 liter per day. We seem to be getting around 7.300 liter per day as it is. So I guess that's 71% of what we need, so we thus earn only $8.265 per year and use 6.35 years to pay back the fertilizer instead. Well.. We're thinking long term. That's for sure..
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

First baling initiative done this year. All 3 grass fields offered baling contracts, so we did'em all, and mowed our own grass to boot. We noticed that even though soil moisture in field had gone down to 10% it was still 20% in the grass, so we didn't dare wait to see if we manage to make hay, as we were afraid half the grass would rot away in the process.

We now remembered from earlier years, how hard it was to find fully fermented silage bales in bale barn after stuffing in new bales, so we removed 9 silage bales prior to putting in the new ones, so we have enough to use for TMR until the new ones ferment. We're now counting 119 silage bales in barn, so total tally is now 128. We've set aside spaces for 120 bales of each kind in the barn, so that means we're at capacity for silage bales. Hopefully the second grass harvest this year will give weather opportunity for hay, but we're not sure as it's typically harder in fall. We have hay enough for another winter with what's already in the barn though, so I don't think it'll be an issue.

Put the grass equipment into the other shed here, and they fit much better there. The shed we used earlier had roof beams too low for the rear Pottinger mower, but this shed is taller underneath. Nice size to group equipment by functionality too.

Image

The second grass harvest will likely come after we're well underway with grain harvest season, so not much to do before then. Just taking care of our animals, and check egg/milk prices to see if we should sell any. Milk prices are an all time low at the moment, so probably a while before we sell that. Egg prices are rising and half way decent at $1.694, but they soared to around $1.900 late fall last year with a dip in between then and now. We're considering selling the eggs now to get some cash in the bank, but I guess we won't get enough cash to buy land before harvest season sets in anyhow, so maybe it's just as well to wait.

It's still the first day of June, so I guess we can take a vacation for the rest of June and July, apart from caring for the animals.
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

Hmm.. I see in seasons doc there's a chance of drought if soil moisture is below 12%. Now at 10% here, but I see no way of irrigating field? How are you supposed to avoid drought? There's plenty water around here. How do I save my fields?
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

June numbers are in with the baling income.

Decided on an accounting change. I'll stop tracking current prices (which is some reports are outdated prices due to lack of updates), and just track a value that seams a reasonable estimation of average sell value. We're not gonna sell stuff when the prices are low anyhow, so to us they are worth what we will likely sell them for if we sell it.

Code: Select all

June 04:                                                                  Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $  23.090     $ 3.612.852
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$   2.106
    Animal Upkeep:                                                        -$     379
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     160
    Fuel cost:                                                            -$     509
    Contracts income:                                                     +$  35.665
    Rounding correction                                                   -$       5
    Silo inventory: Type:  Liters: Price/1000: Value:       Total:
                    Barley  56.971  $360       $  20.510    $  20.510
    Bales:   Grass Silage      126  $60        $  30.240
             Hay Bales          49  $50        $   9.800
             Straw Bales        52  $40        $   8.320    $  48.360
    Milk:                  135.909  $750       $ 101.932
    Eggs:                    6.633  $1900      $  12.603    $ 114.535
    Total value of stored goods:                            $ 183.405                   +$    83.805

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $  55.596     $ 3.696.657   = $ 3.752.253
    ================================================================================================================
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

And another accounting note.. I'm leaving out counting assets like bales and grains in months where it hasn't changed much, or during harvest season where I temporarily may keep grain that is to be sold for contract.

Took vacation in July. Just tending cows. Expecting August to be busy.

Code: Select all

July 04:                                                                  Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $  55.596     $ 3.696.657
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$       4
    Animal Upkeep:                                                        -$     386
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     162

    Rounding correction                                                   -$
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $  55.041     $ 3.696.657   = $ 3.751.698
    ================================================================================================================
As expected, almost all fields but our own are ready for harvest in the first minute of August, the only exception being field 2 again. However, field 10 was harvested instantly. We got a few harvest missions, but it has been raining heavy so we could not start harvest, and while we were waiting, the inhabitants of Ravenport somehow seemed to be able to harvest regardless. The biggest field, field 8, has been harvested and cultivated. Field 7, one of the other big fields, is harvested. We sure will earn less money this year than last year contracting. Maybe they have finally looked at the numbers and seen what their profit margins ended up with paying me to do everything.

There was a great demand for Milk at the restaurant though, so we emptied our milk supply, above 150.000 liters, and that made us quite a bit of cash. We will calculate more when harvesting is done, but the cows are certainly paying for themselves.

I am considering taking a slow off year next year, not doing any contracts, and see what profits we can manage to make of our own assets. Before that though, we hope to get money to at least get another decent piece of land.
Last edited by humbe on Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
Swedish_Contractor
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by Swedish_Contractor »

This is a great read Humbe, thanks for sharing. Took me a few days (on and off reading) to read all your posts!

Its inspiring to read other peoples stories on how they farm. I love the slow realistic approach that's possible with the game. Most other playing styles feel a bit rushed tbh.
humbe
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Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

Thanks.. Always nice to see people enjoy reading it :)

August is nearing the end here. A lot of fields got harvested and cultivated without our help. Not sure if it was the farmers that took initiative this year, or if competing contractors has entered Ravenport. In either case, we did still get a few harvest missions and some cultivate missions. There hasn't been much sowing or fertilizing yet though, so maybe we will get most of those. We'll see.

Seeing how the contractor market change, and having finally decided that we are going to skip contracting next year and see how that goes, we did not invest in any bigger equipment this year. Rather we have prioritized buying land. We have already bought field 23 with plans of turning it into a grass field, so we should be self sufficient with hay and grass silage, and hopefully not have to keep mowing every corner of our farmyard. We have plenty in stock in our bale barn currently, but with a grass field we should be able to keep it stocked.

Image

We are considering where to grab land. Right east of us is the river outside county borders. South of us is a strip of forest between us and the border, but this land does not seem very practical to convert to a field. It's fairly hilly and the forest there will far from pay back the $200.000 in purchase cost. There's a strip of land in between field 23 and 25, but that is dominated by a hill with a mobile tower on top. We can buy the land, but we are required to let the mobile tower stay and provide them a road to get to it so the land has limited uses. It would be nice to buy it to improve the fields on either side of it a bit, but it's not worth $150.000. We decided to go for field 23 as it's the closest field with farmable area to our farm, and while the cost of $200.000, almost half the price of field 12, seemed considerable, we can at least extend the field quite a bit there, and forest operation is fairly easy as the Biomass Heating Plant next to it buys wood. The forest areas on the north side of the valley costs $350.000+ and needs quite a bit of work to create farmable land. We may get there someday, but we'll prioritize getting fields 20-22 first, possibly also 14-18.

Next grab I think is field 22. It costs quite a bit of money, but it's a fair sized plot, and the field can be extended. Then fields 20-21 can follow later and we can create a pretty large and fairly flat field here. We don't have enough money for field 22 yet, but with some more sowing and fertilize missions, and the income from harvesting our soybeans we expect to be able to cover it, or at least get close enough so we can buy it after selling egg and milk sometime in winter.
humbe
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Re: Riverdale Valley - A farm blog - Ravenport, season, from scratch on hard economy

Post by humbe »

And here's the new field 23. Have chopped down the little forest beneath the barn and extended the field up there and also west and east. Sadly there's a junkyard in the way on the property. It seems that I got a freeloader when I bought the property, as he seems to have leased the area for nothing for quite a few years going forward. We'll see if we can find some loophole in the contract allowing us to get rid of that junkyard.

Close the the road, we plowed through the old road, and moved it a bit further down the valley, to still allow access to forest and mobile tower up there, but get a bit extra field area. The field extension could be done with only minor smoothing of some areas, so we did not spend much money on making the field easily workable. We towed the wood to the biomass heating plant with the winch. ~$25k for the wood wasn't awesome, but it did reduce the cost of the field by more than 10% and paved way for a considerably larger field so well worth it.

We actually own some of the area on the other side of the road up there too. Wondering a bit what to do about it. It's a bit steep, so needs some landscaping to be useful to work. There's a few trees more on the plot too. Currently only took down the trees in the way of the field extension.

Sadly we forgot to track the size of the field when we planted it. Will see if we find a way to do size measurement later. It's bigger than 1.87 hectares at least. Guessing around 2.

Image
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