Beginning: what to do with loose straw?

[Neofit]

Hi,

I've started "from scratch" and am awaiting my first wheat harvest. From the tutorial I have learned that my harvester will leave a row of loose straw, that they taught me to collect into bales. At this point though, I only have 26K left after purchasing what I deemed necessary. I don't even have a house or a tent yet, I'm living in my tractor atm, so buying baling tech is out of the question for the moment.

From my googling on the issue I saw that there is the option to get a Loading Wagon, but I can't afford one yet either. Plus I'm not sure how quickly, if ever, I'd get back the 46K that the cheapest wagon costs at the current price of 84€ per whatever measure. (on another note, I wish we had proper difficulty levels: I don't want to play on an already established farm with lots of stuff and plenty of choices already made for me, but that doesn't mean that I want a terrible grind and very low sell prices either).

With a Fork as manual tool I'd manually fill the trailer as in the old days, while waiting for the field to grow .

So, I just leave the straw there in the field, to fertilize the next crop?

[juf.de]

when you start a map, you get three choices, however the selling prices are the same in all three, you can open the ingame options and change the actual difficulty there.

Now to your problem, there are mutliple ways to deal with the problem:
1. don't pickup the straw, this obviously reduces the profit but is also the cheapest option
2. plant a fruittype, that doesn't provide straw, a good choice in the beginning is soybeans, as the yield is low and the price is high, which means, that you can transport a hugh junk of money with a small trailer
3. take a few loans to buy a forage wagon or baler
3.1 forage wagon is better in the beginning, as you do not need additional equipment to transport the straw to the barn
3.2 a baler is alongterm investment, if you plan to do animals too later on
4. you can lease a forage wagon or baler, which doesn't cost that much, be aware though, that it will cost something each hour and day

[Neofit]

4. you can lease a forage wagon or baler, which doesn't cost that much, be aware though, that it will cost something each hour and day

Thanks for this idea, I'll see if it's worth the sell price of the straw.

when you start a map, you get three choices, however the selling prices are the same in all three, you can open the ingame options and change the actual difficulty there.

When you start a new career in "from scratch" mode, it says so in the description: "The economy is tough, prices are low". Are we being mislead?

[juf.de]

Disclaimer: My game is in german, not in english, so some descriptions migth be a bit off
As far as i remember it is indead misleading. But as I wrote above you can change the difficulty anytime in the ingame options (the symbol is a tractor and a cog), so you can adjust it to your liking. I usully start on the easy mod, as otherwise relevant buildings on my maps would be missing. The cescription is from the time of release, but they changed the difficulty settings later on, maybe they forgot to adjust the discription.
The difference is, that on easy you have your equipment and farm, on medium you start without it but a lot of money and on hard you start without it, a lot of money a small credit.

[Derplodactyl]

Leasing is a great option, but remember you'll also need a bale spike to pick them up with - and a loader of some sort to use the spike. A front loader is your cheapest option with a front loader bracket and the price is nice and cheap.

Also remember when leasing that not only will you incur the upfront costs, but also a daily charge and an hourly charge. For example, you spend £3,750 leasing a baler up front when:-

- £1,000 is the initial one-time payment in 'base cost'.
- £1,250 a your daily fee.
- £1,500 is the machine's hourly charge.

The daily fee is self explanatory, midnight each game day, you will be charged £1,250 for use of the baler reoccurring. The hourly cost is based on the timer of the baler - each time the counter on the machine increases by 1 hour, you'll be charged £1,500 - note that this counter only rises when the baler is actually turned on, pulling it around without being powered will not increase the hours.

To minimise costs, you want to use the baler within one usage hour, and within one game day.

[Old McGlenno]

I do have a related question to the OP thoughts and some of the responses. Given the heavy investment for baling, is it really worth it in-game to bale your straw and hay when dealing with animals? We have so many options for dealing with and storing loose straw and hay, I'm not sure what the advantage is other than playing for realism. Of course, there is silage but that can be made without making bales too.

[juf.de]

@Old McGlenno:
Baling is mostly for realism or aesthetics, you will probably always safe more money by combining a forage wagon with one or more hay barns. This migth change a bit when you play on 4x or larger maps and use autoload trailers or have a decent stacking skill, as you can move way more straw or hay as bales then in loose form. Also the space you need to store bales is smaller compared to the hay barn. Then there is also the seasons mod, where you need to bale your stuff to sell it, as the selling points won't accept loose material.

[FarmCatJenkins]

When you start a new career in "from scratch" mode, it says so in the description: "The economy is tough, prices are low". Are we being mislead?

When the game launched you couldn't change the economy difficulty, so the description was never changed.

[jasonbarron]

You need money to make money, it's just the way the world (and the game) works. Just lean hard on the bank and get the land you need and the proper equipment to care for it. Anything other than that just amounts to self gimping for role play reasons.

[Noraf]

If you don't have long to drive, and don't have a massive ammound of bales, there are some 3pt options for handeling bales tough, witch is even cheaper than a frontloader and spike/grabb

[niggle44]

If you decide to do bales, remember that if you are on console they take up 1 slot per bale, so if you are short on slots then store loose straw / hay / grass in a multi fruit silo or hay barn.

[Tylercheesey1986]

Cheap loose straw forage setup is to use the 'milling machine' mod on the front 3point hitch and any trailer on the rear hitch

[AgPro Farms]

^^ What the good doctor said above.

[ThatCanadianGuy]

If I don't have animals I don't worry about the straw, just spread it and forget it.
The amount of equipment and time straw takes usually doesn't justify the pennies I get for it.

[SJ_Sathanas]

I wouldn't dismiss straw. Yes equipment is expensive when you're a new start-up and the price per ltr is low but a decent size field will yield a lot of material and it all adds up.