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

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humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Now we have sowed Oilseed Radish on all our 3 fields. Our grass field is fully fertilized already and doesn't need reseeding so won't be doing it there.

So to summarize result:

Field 27: 3.50447 hectares, $382 cost of applying it, including gear maintenance and fuel.
Field 28: 3.22075 hectares, $344 cost of applying it, including gear maintenance and fuel.
Field 30: 4.77963 hectares, $500 cost of applying it, including gear maintenance and fuel.

Very cheap compared to the solid fertilizer we've used earlier. Will probably continue to do this.

The new field needs like, and the old fields need lime in the areas that hasn't been limed since the first season. Sadly, the fields have different parts in different lime states.

I think we'll leave the liming effort until next year to count it into the statistics then for our non-contract test. Thus the fiscal year is starting to wrap up.. What's left is:
  • Caring for the animals through rest of autumn and winter.
  • Figure out if we need to store hay inside and if so find a place.
  • Look for a good price for eggs and soybeans and sell what we have. Possibly also milk during winter.
  • Consider if we should cut down a few more trees or not. There's a few possibly in the way between road and old field 21, where we could extend new field a little if we want to.
  • If we get enough money, buy field 20 and include it into our new field.
  • Do the few remaining fertilize contracts if we are offered them.
Image

The new field is actually larger than field 12, and field 21+22 has about the same purchase price. To boot we had trees to sell to get some of that cost back, which payed back all the landscaping and then some, but included quite a bit of work. Combined all our 4 fields are about the same size as field 8 I think. Sadly the grass field isn't showing on the picture. If I enable grass we also see everything outside the fields messing up the image.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Yield numbers are also in.

Field 27 gave us 8997.7 liters/hectar.
Field 28 gave us 8997.4 liters/hectar.

Crop rotation numbers are different for different parts of the field, but crop rotation bonus should be 0.95 for the bigger part of the field. Assuming it is for the whole field, the soybeans yield fully fertilized with lime should be 9471.3 liters/hectar.

Looking at someone else's calculations here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nkwmv0sxjbopd ... .xlsx?dl=0 soybeans seems to have 8999.6 liter/hectares yield. Not sure how correct those numbers are, but I guess it's possible that soybeans yield is really 9000 liter/hectares, but I get a better number because parts of my field have been fallow before rather than the crop rotation I've been calculating from field start. If I manage to stay away from altering fields, I guess I will get better numbers later..

In our new field, I landscaped over the old fields there, which seems to reset state, so I guess whole field will be in crop rotation for fallow previous seasons so we should get good numbers on yield from start there. Hopefully we can afford field 20 before next fiscal year begins, so we can include field 20 before starting to use it for anything..
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Hmm.. To answer my own questions.. It seems hay is rotting outside if not baled at least, so I'm guessing it will rot outside even if baled, so we need to move it inside somewhere. We'll see if we can find some temporary space somewhere, or build a usable shed.

As for the animal upkeep we have been charged, I'm thinking it is likely water pump maintenance. I'll start adding water myself again and see if I can avoid it.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Just in case anyone wondered why I bought a bale barn early on:

Image

Not exactly a neat stacker with front loader.. But wasn't easy to find a shed that I could unload our bale trailer in, unless it was a really massive one. I rathered opted for some front loader work, using the unused shed space next to our maintenance shop.

Anyhow. Most pressing issue fixed. Weather report saying no rain forecasted before winter, but that can change. Now we're ready for it.. If the roof of this shed is fine at least. Lets hope so. Other option was to sell it, but as hay is weather dependent, having some extra stowed away is nice in case weather next season has poor drying conditions
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Mid October now.. $91.338 banked. Got 7 possible more fertilization missions, but most on small fields. Just final step of field 6 and 11 that have decent size, so I'm guessing max $25.000 from those, probably less. We may get $20.000 from selling eggs which I hope we get a good price for soon, but I see soybean prices seems to be good in summer and bad in winter, so we're likely to have to sit on it for a while. Not being able to sell soybeans will make it hard to get enough money to buy field 20 in time for spring. Lets hope for some great demand. If we get close, I guess we can sell some wheat and some silage bales too. We can consider selling some gear too.. I doubt I'll bother using the Heizomat woodchipper more for instance. Anyhow.. Too far of now. We could do it at the very start of spring, to get the field completed prior to seeding it, but would be nice to do in autumn so we could plant oilseed there too..
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

And October numbers are in. Not much to note here. We finally figured out what the animal upkeep was though, so maybe we'll just deliver the water manually now while we remember it.. Some fertilize contracts. Landscaped new field. Harvested our soybeans from our two other fields. Sow oilseed radish on all the 3 non-grass fields afterwards.

Code: Select all

October 04:                                                           Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $  81.024     $ 4.308.801
    Construction cost: Landscaping around new field.                      -$  32.519
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$   2.360
    Animal Upkeep:                                                        -$     245
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     168
    Fuel cost:                                                            -$   2.381
    Seed bought:        2.000 liters                                      -$   1.800    +$     1.800
    Seed used:          3.722 in, 3.839 remain, 1.883 l used.                           -$     1.695
    Fertilizer bought:  8.000 liters.                                     -$  15.360    +$    15.360
    Fertilizer used:    5.863 in, 3.620 remain, 10.243 l used.                          -$    19.667

    Sold Animals:                                                         +$   2.171
    Sold Wood:                                                            +$   1.550
    Contracts Income:                                                     +$  61.315

    Rounding correction                                                   -$       1
    Silo inventory: Type:  Liters: Price/1000: Value:       Total:
                    Wheat   28.675  $400       $  11.470
                    Barley  48.004  $360       $  17.281
                    Soybean 60.000  $1200      $  72.000    $ 100.751
    Bales:   Grass Silage      159  $60        $  38.160
             Hay Bales         137  $50        $  27.400
             Straw Bales        39  $40        $   6.240    $  71.800
    Milk:                   12.988  $750       $   9.741
    Eggs:                   11.564  $1900      $  21.972    $  31.713
    Total value of stored goods:                            $ 204.264                   +$    43.246
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $  91.226     $ 4.347.845   = $ 4.439.071
    ================================================================================================================

Hmm.. The above info can mostly be auto-generated from my savegame extractor.. Will see when I get spare time to try and fix that.
If I just track bace price as value for assets, I can calculate the asset prices from scratch in save instead of adding to numbers from previous months. If I want to put some effort into it, I can also use extra statistics in game in an attempt to connect contract expenses and field work expenses into separate bits.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Finally there's a good eggprice, so we stopped waiting for great demand, loaded the pallets up on our bale trailer and drove away.. But sadly, it seems the sellpoints refused to take the eggs from our trailer, so we had to lift each pallet down to them and put it back. Wonder if they would be ok with a lowbed trailer. It worked from our truck bed, but there we can only fit one pallet.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Field 2,6,11,14,15,17 & 18 lacks last fertilization step and field 16 lacks the 2 last. Just got last one for field 11 which is the biggest one of them. $15.378, though cost of fertilization might be 4-5 thousand of those.

We figured we really want to be able to buy field 20 before winter, so we can extend the new field while it's fresh and grow oilseed radish on them likely in time for next year as the rest of the field. That way we can avoid extending the field later and have parts of field with different crop rotation stats, and we can use it for yield calculations immediately.

Thus, we decided to sell the silage bales we couldn't fit in barn. The price was half decent so we got right above ten grand for those. We have also sold the Heizomat, figuring we wouldn't do more woodchipping. We need luck to get woodchip prices above selling wood prices, even within a whole year, and selling wood we can do anytime, and with the winch and being reasonably close to sellpoint it's far easier. Selling the Heizomat, we found that selling through our own maintenance shop got us the same amount of money as selling it at the shop, so I guess we can save us that driving from now on. We also got a bit more for it after repairing it, but the difference was at least less than $100.

We want to water the animals ourself to prevent the pump fee. Initially we figured the Joskin trailer with 8.000 liter would carry enough water for months use for the cows, but it turns out the cows need more than that in a day. Thus we'd rather use our new 32.000 liter trailer, and we then can sell the Joskin trailer to get some cash. But the big trailer is connected through a dolly and is a total pain to back up, so instead of getting water from the river, we decided to drill for water and get a water station. It cost almost as much as the Joskin trailer sold for, but at least we can get water to our cows ourself a lot faster. Our water station location was a bit cramped for the drill, but now that the job is done, it's nicely located so our trailer can just drive around the barn not having to back at all.

Image

After having done this fertilizer contract we're then at around 165 thousand dollars. We'll try to cut down some more trees to make a profit, and lend a little from the bank to be able to buy field 20 very soon, so we can grow oilseed on it now in November.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Field bought. $45.000 borrowed I think.. Managed to get it down to $20.000 logging in the area now. With a bit more logging and milk selling, I think we'll manage to pay back the loan, at least before winter is done.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

And November numbers are in:

Code: Select all

  Accounting November 04 {
    November 04:                                                          Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $  91.226     $ 4.347.845
    Loan Taken:                                                           +$  10.000    -$    10.000
    Investment: Field 20                                                  -$ 227.040    +$   227.040
    Construction cost: Landscaping around new field.                      -$  12.789
    Sold equipment: Heizomat & Joskin water trailer                       +$  30.027    -$    37.500
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$     424
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     170
    Loan interest:                                                        -$      84
    Seed used:          3.839 in, 3600 remain, 239 l used.                              -$       215
    Fertilizer used:    3.620 in, 1.000 remain, 2.620 l used.                           -$     5.030
    Sold Wood:                                                            +$  58.921
    Sold Bales:                                                           +$  10.535
    Harvest Income: (Sold eggs)                                           +$  22.610
    Contracts Income:                                                     +$  17.807
    Rounding correction                                                   -$       0
    Silo inventory: Type:  Liters: Price/1000: Value:       Total:
                    Wheat   28.675  $ 400      $  11.470
                    Barley  44.058  $ 360      $  15.861
                    Soybean 60.000  $1200      $  72.000    $  99.331
    Bales:   Grass Silage      115  $  60      $  27.600
             Hay Bales         136  $  50      $  27.200
             Straw Bales        37  $  40      $   5.920    $  60.720
    Milk:                   24.736  $ 750      $  18.552
    Eggs:                    1.087  $1900      $   2.065    $  20.617
    Total value of stored goods:                            $ 180.668                   -$    23.596
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $     619     $ 4.498.544   = $ 4.499.163
    ================================================================================================================
Winter has set in. Got a great demand for wheat so selling our stash for the best wheat price we've seen yet, $564. $16.198 in, so then loan is gone. We should have enough barley to feed chickens until next harvest so shouldn't need the wheat as food currently.

Not much to do now but to care for animals and check to see if there's a decent milk price some time.

Snow came early in winter. Not frost in ground yet, but nothing worth doing in it anyhow. I see the snow is kept out of the shed we store extra hay in, so I'm guessing that means it's got a tight roof and hay won't rot away in there.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Basically just waited through winter tending animals and selling some stock when there was a good price to be found.

Accounting for the winter is in:

Code: Select all

    December 04:                                                          Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $     619     $ 4.498.544
    Loan Repayed:                                                         -$  10.000    +$    10.000
    Sold Animals:                                                         +$   2.714
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$     175
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     174
    Harvest income: (Wheat)                                               +$  16.198
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $   9.182     $ 4.508.544   = $ 4.517.726
    ================================================================================================================

    January 05:                                                           Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $   9.182     $ 4.508.544
    Animal Upkeep:                                                        -$      12
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     175
    Sold Milk:                                                            +$  35.231
    Rounding correction                                                   -$       1
    Silo inventory: Type:  Liters: Price/1000: Value:       Total:
                    Barley  36.589  $ 360      $  13.171
                    Soybean 60.000  $1200      $  72.000    $  85.171
    Bales:   Grass Silage      111  $  60      $  26.640
             Hay Bales         132  $  50      $  26.400
             Straw Bales        33  $  40      $   5.280    $  58.320
    Milk:                   15.047  $ 750      $  11.285
    Eggs:                    3.566  $1900      $   6.775    $  18.060
    Total value of stored goods:                            $ 161.551                   -$    19.117
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $  44.225     $ 4.489.427   = $ 4.533.652
    ================================================================================================================

    February 05:                                                          Cash flow:       Assets:
    Incoming balance / assets:                                             $  44.225     $ 4.489.427
    Property Maintenance:                                                 -$     177
    Vehicle/equipment maintenance cost:                                   -$     501
    Rounding correction                                                   -$       1
    Silo inventory: Type:  Liters: Price/1000: Value:       Total:
                    Barley  32.825  $ 360      $  11.817
                    Soybean 60.000  $1200      $  72.000    $  83.817
    Bales:   Grass Silage      107  $  60      $  25.680
             Hay Bales         130  $  50      $  26.000
             Straw Bales        29  $  40      $   4.640    $  56.320
    Milk:                   34.731  $ 750      $  26.048
    Eggs:                    2.809  $1900      $   5.337    $  31.385
    Total value of stored goods:                            $ 171.522                   +$     9.971
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                           $  43.546     $ 4.499.398   = $ 4.542.944
    ================================================================================================================
Adding last year to yearly summary we see:

Code: Select all

                  Contracts   Harvest  Forestry  Consumables: Other      Net Worth:    Increase:
                    Income:   Income:   Income:               Expenses:
  Fiscal year 01: 1.070.961    91.161    87.980       226.351    18.095   1.570.092  + 1.070.092
  Fiscal year 02:   902.823   257.304   141.709       186.780     7.713   2.560.989  +   990.897
  Fiscal year 03:   768.533   275.257    28.692       164.160    15.081   3.612.465  + 1.051.476
  Fiscal year 04:   635.682   240.012   197.970       152.700    16.686   4.546.744  +   934.279

  Game start:             -         -         -             -         -     500.000            -
  March 01:         123.557         0         0        40.380     1.627     610.672  +   110.672
  April 01:         238.433         0         0        58.320     1.265     790.070  +   179.398
  May 01:            68.980         0    44.567         1.171       472     883.304  +    93.234
  June 01:          174.955         0    34.522        44.160     1.181   1.050.580  +   167.276
  July 01:           76.976         0     8.891        15.360       446   1.104.717  +    54.137
  August 01:              0         0         0             0         5   1.104.712  -         5
  September 01:           0         0         0             0         5   1.104.707  -         5
  October 01:       191.039    36.734         0        15.360     7.500   1.413.299  +   308.592 3)
  November 01:      176.875    54.427         0        34.320     5.577   1.555.228  +   141.929
  December 01:       20.146         0         0        17.280         7   1.570.102  +    14.874
  January 02:             0         0         0             0         5   1.570.097  -         5
  February 02:            0         0         0             0         5   1.570.092  -         5

  March 02:         213.105    12.587    38.156        51.840       743   1.759.867  +   189.775 1)
  April 02:             926         0         0             0        11   1.760.782  +       915
  May 02:            41.939     9.059         0             0       248   1.809.772  +    48.990
  June 02:           29.618     3.004         0         5.760       460   1.910.669  +   100.897
  July 02:            3.269         0         0             0        12   1.911.549  +       880
  August 02:        329.550   101.113         0        65.340        99   2.282.791  +   371.242
  September 02:     112.901     1.589         0        23.040     1.339   2.380.976  +    98.185
  October 02:       140.375    13.433         0        40.800     2.153   2.475.955  +    94.979
  November 02:       31.140    40.431         0             0     1.480   2.494.409  +    18.454
  December 02:            0         0    25.353             0       728   2.516.842  +    22.433
  January 03:             0    76.088    78.200             0       341   2.613.589  +    96.747
  February 03:            0         0         0             0        99   2.560.989  -    52.600 2)

  March 03:          27.954         0    28.690        28.140       814   2.588.095  +    27.106
  April 03:          30.252         0         2             0       660   2.617.350  +    29.255
  May 03:             2.178         0         0             0       131   2.612.120  -     5.230
  June 03:            4.815         0         0        19.200       181   2.615.506  +     3.386
  July 03:                0         0         0             0       123   2.615.383  -       123
  August 03:        463.663    11.166         0        75.900    11.271   3.130.322  +   514.939
  September 03:     159.192         0         0        19.200       349   3.458.777  +   328.455
  October 03:        78.050         0         0        19.200       439   3.504.804  +    46.027
  November 03:        2.429    91.760         0             0       153   3.552.731  +    47.927
  December 03:            0    88.335         0         2.520       150   3.572.407  +    19.676
  January 04:             0    83.996         0             0       253   3.595.148  +    22.741
  February 04:            0         0         0             0       557   3.612.465  +    17.317

  March 04:               0     5.944         0             0       551   3.626.175  +    13.710
  April 04:           7.475     2.187         0         9.600       550   3.632.238  +     6.063
  May 04:             2.429     1.843         0             0       568   3.635.945  +     3.707
  June 04:           35.665         0         0             0     3.159   3.752.253  +   116.308
  July 04:                0         0         0             0       552   3.751.698  -       555
  August 04:        232.816   124.483    51.265        54.360     2.367   4.030.915  +   279.217
  September 04:     278.175    16.096    86.234        71.580     1.890   4.308.801  +   277.886
  October 04:        61.315     2.171     1.550        17.160     5.155   4.347.845  +    39.044
  November 04:       17.807    33.145    58.921             0       678   4.498.544  +   150.699
  December 04:            0    18.912         0             0       349   4.517.726  +    19.182
  January 05:             0    35.231         0             0       188   4.533.652  +    15.926
  February 05:            0         0         0             0       679   4.546.744  +    13.092

  1) - Something fishy in the records here. Could we have split reporting of a month into two?
       Not entirely sure which month is split so some of the records here may be for February or April.
  2) - Have not included expenses like landscaping, and assets may change due to price changes, or
       devaluation when selling gear. In this case, I think landscaping caused the penalty.
  3) - Half of steady expenses here are loan interest.
Here we see how the contracts income has gone further down from last year due to missing out on harvest and cultivate contracts. Harvest income has also gone down since last year, probably because quite a bit of it has come from leftovers from contracts, and we got little harvesting contracts this year. Thus sadly, we don't see how harvest income from own assets has progressed. We have done a logging initiative to get money back after buying land, and to be able to make bigger fields. This is a one time income though, so can't depend on that saving us later. All in all, total assets are up almost a million dollars this year too, but without the logging income it would be quite a bit less than last year.

That's all for fiscal year 4. Now lets start preparing for year 5.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Trying to prepare tracking of data before starting season 5 here..

Updated my savegame tracker to create an assets report.. Current asset report here:

Code: Select all

Assets at 2005.03.01 00:00
Bank:                                                                                                                                  Value:
  Cash                                                                                                                          43,546.894531
  Loan                                                                                                                               0.000000
Land:                                                                                                                 Value:
  Field 19                                                                                                    210,182.000000
  Field 20                                                                                                    227,040.000000
  Field 21                                                                                                    147,984.000000
  Field 22                                                                                                    280,032.000000
  Field 23                                                                                                    202,992.000000
  Field 24-26                                                                                                 362,712.000000
                                                                                                                             1,430,942.000000
Placeables:                               Season Upkeep:                                                              Value:
  Dog House                                     5.000000                                                        2,500.000000
  Square Bale Barn                             10.000000                                                       48,000.000000
  Water Pump                                    5.000000                                                        5,000.000000
  MW HOF USA Vehicle Shed B                     0.000000                                                       15,000.000000
  MW HOF USA Vehicle Shed A                     0.000000                                                        5,000.000000
  Large Chicken Coop                           40.000000                                                       86,900.000000
  MW HOF USA Cow Barn                         100.000000                                                       70,000.000000
  MF Workshop Shed                             22.000000                                                       22,000.000000
  Water Station                                 5.000000                                                        5,000.000000
  Large Grain Silo                             60.000000                                                      180,000.000000
  Edwards Modding Farmhouse                   150.000000                                                      200,000.000000
                                                                                                                               639,400.000000
Vehicles:                                     Fuel Used:Fuel Used Value: Operation Time:  Maintenance Cost:           Value:
  Caseih 7250 Pro tractor                       0.717430        0.717430      192.375000           1.694920   143,497.587650
  Rostselmash RSM 161 combineDrivable         892.124749      892.124749       29.593750           0.795510   298,107.079741
  Fendt Favorit 515c tractor                   71.257058       71.257058      183.562500           1.254215    95,927.488727
  Fendt 1038 tractor                            0.144271        0.144271    3,131.406250          92.621064   328,907.234665
  Ford 2020 SuperDuty F-Series Diesel           7.797336        7.797336    4,906.448730          21.468567    48,640.734096
  Manitou MC 18-4 teleHandler                   2.250461        2.250461    3,717.568359          12.366168    36,985.383371
                                                                                                                               952,065.508251
Equipment:                                                               Operation Time:  Maintenance Cost:           Value:
  Amazone Catros 6002-2 cultivator                                          7,204.343750          20.078468    30,979.921532
  SB1000 Front Weight                                                       3,131.406250           0.253371       899.746629
  SB1000 Front Weight                                                      27,260.125000           2.205692       897.794308
  Agromasz POH 5 plow                                                          52.671875           0.066295    13,999.933705
  Vaederstad Rapid A 600S sowingMachine                                     5,701.031250          38.953050    75,961.046950
  Vaederstad FH 2200 fillableImplement                                      4,161.203125           2.992839     7,997.007161
  Stoll FZ 30 attachableFrontloader                                           183.578125           0.089123     5,399.910877
  Stoll Pallet Fork                                                           183.562500           0.013202       799.986798
  Bredal K105 spreader                                                         70.687500           0.247846    40,249.752154
  Fsi ST 65 T stumpCutter                                                      50.470703           0.022687     4,999.977313
  Poettinger NOVACAT 301 ED mower                                           6,296.951172          10.756188    18,989.243812
  Poettinger NOVACAT X8 ED mower                                            6,279.458984          23.710787    41,976.289213
  Kuhn SR 314 windrowerUnpowered                                            7,069.027344          14.617125    22,985.382875
  Rostselmash Draper Stream 900 cutter                                         29.609375           0.155725    58,499.844275
  Kroeger TKD 302 trailer                                                   1,912.203125           4.641648    26,995.358352
  Kuhn SW 4014 baleWrapper                                                  4,958.962891          24.074599    53,975.925401
  Thundercreek FST 990 fuelTrailer                                          2,638.101807           2.015974     8,497.984026
  Kuhn GF 8712 tedder                                                       1,575.203125           2.265849    15,997.734151
  Kuhn LSB 1290 D baler                                                        36.726563           0.346692   104,999.653308
  Siloking TrailedLine Duo 1814 mixerWagon                                  5,953.301270          28.366659    52,971.633341
  Stoll Universal Bucket                                                    9,634.093750           1.212588     1,398.787412
  Tajfunold EGV 80 AHK TajfunWinch                                             38.300781           0.015495     4,499.984505
  Lizard S-710 pickupConveyorBelt                                          49,109.984375          22.075688     4,977.924312
  Grimme SL 80-22 Quantum conveyorBelt                                      9,426.853516          32.205112    37,967.794888
  Samsonagro SP 14/17 manureSpreader                                       14,081.639648          54.437245    52,445.562755
  Strautmann Aperion 3401 trailer                                             616.611328           3.603291    64,996.396709
  Arcusin FSX 63.72 baleLoader                                              9,765.503906          61.456405    69,938.543595
  Strautmann SEK 802 trailer                                                4,413.140625           3.174039     7,996.825961
  Joskin BETIMAX RDS 7500 livestockTrailer                                  2,140.394287           4.618272    23,995.381728
  NMC 320H Pro Snow Blower                                                  1,749.233276           1.250228     7,948.749772
  Egg Pallet                                                                    0.000000           0.000000     1,000.000000
  Egg Pallet                                                                    0.000000           0.000000     1,000.000000
  Kuhn PRIMOR 15070 strawBlower                                             1,184.284668           2.661770    24,997.338230
  Krampe Dolly 10 L dolly                                                   4,277.073730           3.460698     8,996.539302
  Lizard MKS 32 waterTrailer                                                4,245.031738          25.951610    71,974.048390
  Egg Pallet                                                                    0.000000           0.000000     1,000.000000
  Egg Pallet                                                                    0.000000           0.000000     1,000.000000
  Egg Pallet                                                                    0.000000           0.000000     1,000.000000
  Lime Big Bag                                                                  0.000000           0.000000       450.000000
  Egg Box                                                                       0.000000           0.000000         0.000000
                                                                                                                               975,658.003740
Product:                                Est. Sell Value:     Amount (l):                                              Value:
  Barley                                      370.000000   34,486.563722                                       12,760.028577
  Canola                                      700.000000   55,418.871094                                       38,793.209766
  Soybean                                   1,200.000000   60,000.386719                                       72,000.464063
  Grass                                        70.000000    1,539.756226                                          107.782936
  Eggs                                      1,850.000000    4,809.326269                                        8,897.253598
  Milk                                        750.000000   34,731.531250                                       26,048.648438
  Hay                                          60.000000  522,813.963014                                       31,368.837781
  Straw                                        45.000000  127,218.328247                                        5,724.824771
  Silage                                       70.000000  434,831.438477                                       30,438.200693
  Seeds                                       900.000000    3,600.305176                                        3,240.274658
  Fertilizer                                1,920.000000    1,000.741638                                        1,921.423945
  Lime                                        180.000000      494.162109                                           88.949180
  Forage                                       50.000000    9,770.028320                                          488.501416
  Manure                                       30.000000   18,593.721497                                          557.811645
  Diesel                                    1,250.000000    4,945.783020                                        6,182.228775
                                                                                                                               238,618.440241
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total asset value:                                                                                                           4,280,230.846763
=============================================================================================================================================
Surprisingly, the total of 4,280,230 is $266,514 lower than the value I've reported in my old reporting. My old reporting is easily flawed as any error in one month will just carry onto the next, so I'm guessing this new value is more correct anyhow.

It used to be more though, before I remembered I edited savegame to pretend the house I bought cost $200.000. Made it possible for me to override price in above report, so I could fix that.

Vehicles are bought with a full fuel tank and with no need to repair them. To make their value as exact as possible, I deduct the cost of the fuel used compared to a full tank from their value, and I use the maintenance formula mentioned earlier in this thread to estimate how much I would need to use to repair it, and deduct that too from value. Thus, I can look at this value before and after I do some work, and see how much the work cost me.

To put value on the different products we have, we have entered some initial sell values, that are basically prices I expect to sell for on average. Initial values are set by just looking at history from last year, and taking a value a bit below the maximum value we have seen. The goods I'm not likely to sell have values set by how useful they are. For instance, the manure price is calculated to the value that I save by not having to buy solid fertilizer for my spreader. The grass value is set to the same as silage value as making silage from grass is easy.

The product amounts here are the total from all buildings and equipment, even including content of feeding area in animal pens, front loader bucket and any big bags or bales laying around.

Will try to figure out if I can improve reporting on diffs of assets and other state in between savegames, and then I'll be ready to start going with next season.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

On a sidenote, I did a small test on oilseeded field. I can actually fertilize the oilseed, and then cultivate it to get to fertilization step 2 straight away. I can even fertilize, then seed with seeder that also cultivates, and then fertilize again straight afterwards to get to fertilization 3 step immedidately, without having to wait for a single growth stage of my crop.

Not that I'm in a rush. I assume it doesn't matter when the fertilization steps come as long as all 3 are there when it's goes from last growing stage to ready to be harvested, and I might want to wait for more manure to come. But nice to see that it's easy to finish fertilization early, and not need to worry about narrow wheels.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

Season 5 kickoff

Four years we've been farming now, and the farm has extended beyond our expectations. Contracting has been exhausting but a huge income source. The farm has extended to a size in which it should hopefully be self-sufficient. For this year we will do no contracts at all! And we will use the spare time to try and track own resources in detail so we can get an overview of what actual expenses are for our animal husbandry, and what income we make from our various fields.

Fields:

First, what do we need? We need more barley or wheat for our chickens this season. We also need more straw for cow bedding, and if we have extra we can use for food too. Last year we have just used what we have saved up from the two years before that. Thus we expect that any of our fields with wheat or barley crops should suffice to meet those needs.

Would be nice to get oats too, so we can test out horses if we want to. With grass field we likely get enough grass to test out sheep if wanted. Pigs would be interesting to test too (though I here they require quite a bit of work), but then we also need to be able to produce more type of stuff. We could buy a planter relatively cheap, to be able to plant corn, sunflowers and sugar beet. It costs more to be able to harvest them though, but corn and sunflowers we can at least harvest with an additional header that fits our harvester.

NB: We thought after landscaping field, they would count as fallow, but it seems the old fields after re-plowing still registers. Thus the new field is also in disarray as to current crop rotation.

We did some adjustments to both field 27 and 28 last year too.. 27 to fit in chicken coop, and 28 to smooth out the field so the seeder got to all parts of it and tractors don't get stuck. So sadly, we won't have a correct crop rotation for any field for quite a while longer. Field 27 and 28 are also in danger of being affected when we start expanding farm. Hopefully field 30 is easy to work with. If so we can keep it as is for a long time, and get a known crop rotation there. Germination failures, drought damage, withering and the like cause parts of field to count as fallow though, so we need to try and keep those to a minimum if we want to calculate close to exact values as to yield.

For now, I think we keep with crop rotations in field 27 and 28, just altering product within category as needed, and suggests the following new one for field 30, rotating between 4 instead of 3 products, so we can grow cereal a bit more often without getting too bad modifiers. That means we need corn equipment this year. :)

Crop rotations:

Code: Select all

    Field 27:   *Canola (Oilseed) 1.20   Oat        (Cereal)  1.20   Soybeans (Legume) 0.95
    Field 28:   *Barley (Cereal)  1.20   Canola     (Oilseed) 1.20   Soybeans (Legume) 0.95
    Field 29:   *Grass            0.95
    Field 30:   *Corn   (Cereal)  1.14   Sunflowers (Oilseed) 1.20   Wheat    (Cereal) 1.14   Soybeans (Legume) 0.95
    (The (*) indicates what step in rotation we're at this year. To the right is next year. To the left is last year.)
Lime:
When adjusting fields earlier, we've only been applying lime to the areas where we touched where it was required for yield. Now, areas not touched for three years needs lime again. I think we'll try to apply lime all around to calculate complete lime costs for all our fields, and hopefully avoid needing to do patchwork here later.

Grass field:
We expect fertilization of grass field will be worth it. It might not be with the sell price of grass silage, but we use grass for animal husbandry. If we didn't need it, we would have the option of using the field for something else, and thus we want to rate how much grass is worth compared to what we otherwise could have used field for to get maximum profits. We expect that to increase the worth of grass, and fertilization to be worth it.

To be sure though, we will run a test this year, by just harvesting the grass twice. The field is now already fully fertilized. The next time we harvest it will not be fertilized at all, and we'll see what the difference is. I expect us to find that we want to fertilize, so I'm guessing we will fertilize after harvesting the second time.

Tracking costs:

To track the costs we will save regularly in between activities and use my save game extractor to see differences. We will try to create some readable reports as we go. Hopefully we can automate creating these reports once we get a better feel for how we want to do it. Some bits to look out for. We currently include contents of pens in stock. Thus, our stock of barley is being reduced all the time as the chickens eat. When harvesting barley, we need to ensure that we get correct numbers, and that it doesn't just look like the chickens didn't need food while we harvested. It's a bit tricky with assets that change in real time. For instance, we will gain some eggs while we seed a field, but the worth of those eggs should not be included in accounting for cost of working the field.

We will try to divide costs and income into the following categories:
  • Cows
  • Chickens
  • Field 27
  • Field 28
  • Field 29
  • Field 30
  • General (buying / selling gear, refilling fuel trailer, property maintenance on property not linked to specific animal handling, ...)

In theory, we could probably just track one of the field and calculate the rest using yield and field size metrics, but we want to measure them separately to see how big differences we get due to fields being easier or harder to work. We also want to calculate yield numbers for different type of products.


The plan:
  • Right after midnight. Take a pause and see if we're up to date with numbers we want to track for that day. At this time we should add real time changing values like eggs, manure and milk produced and food and straw eaten and divide property maintenance.
  • In the morning, when there's light to work with, tend to animals one type at a time, and track costs of tending them separately.
  • Work on one field at a time doing one task at a time, so we can track costs separately here too. Field work for normal fields will be: lime, seed (with seeder that cultivates), fertilize, await first growth stage, fertilize again, harvest and finally sow oilseed radish. For the grass field see above.
  • There will be no logging, no contracting, no using farm equipment for sightseeing, and in general little activity apart from the above.
humbe
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:33 pm

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

Post by humbe »

More details on how I'll do tracking. Hiding to not dominate thread with specifics.
Firstly, in my assets report, I'll ignore the fuel from vehicles in the product bits. The value of fuel is included in the cost of a new vehicle, and the lack of a full tank reduces the cost there, so value of that fuel is tracked with the vehicle. Then we'll avoid that we buy a vehicle for $100.000 but we get +$101.000 in assets because the fuel is added separately.

Then I figured out, that when tracking diff between work during the day, I'll ignore the content from animal pens. Thus, I won't see differences in egg, milk, manure etc. As said, I'll save the game between work in different categories. I'll try to do a save after midnight, as close to 00:00 as possible, and that save should not contain any work. It should then take a look at all assets, including pens, and compare that with all assets from last midnight, to track changes in products animals consume or produce.

Property maintenance is not a lot of money, but I'd like to figure out how big a part barn and coop maintenance are of the total, so I can assign that to their categories. As the game only lists a total for property maintenance, and initial upkeep at buy time, and maintenance of a building increases over time, I need to understand how it changes over time to be able to track individual buildings maintenance cost. Items (placeables) have age and seasonsYears properties in savegame. I'll experiment setting these to various values and see if I can find a formula that fits the costs. Hopefully I find a formula I can use. If I don't figure it out, I think I'll set the age bits to zero so all buildings start of the same, so I can hopefully have better data to look for a formula later, and for now can assume that the maintenance cost of building A is an appropriate share of the total relative to it's share of the initial upkeep cost.

To easier be able to test and maintain the savegame extractor, I think I also need to implement backup of savegames, to at least keep the savegames for the last couple of days, so I can implement an option to replay going through the saves to verify if changes do what they are intended to or not.
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