Someone please explain fertilization contracts to me, as they only seem to lose you money.

[RED_Smith]

I love doing fert contracts! They are easy money. The trick here is to have multiple contracts to do. I am just leasing a Hardi Mega 21M sprayer (5% of purchase price) and I buy a couple of big bags of liquid fert. I have a small tractor with front and back 3pt hitch, so I drive up to the sprayer and connect it on the tractor. Then I load the sprayer. Load the remaining fertilizer on a small trailer I have. Hook that to the back and drive to the first contract. There I will unhook the trailer and move the sprayer to the back. Spray my contract field and collect. Swap around and go to the next field. I usually lose money on the first field because that money covers the lease and the first big bag of liquid fert. After that, the rest is my profit. Equipment lease is from midnight to midnight. So the more contacts I do the more profit I make, because I'm not "borrowing" equipment every contract just leasing once for multiple contracts. So I like to start real early on those days. A lot of night work. You also need to unload the sprayer before returning it. [ I ] on your PC keyboard to overload (empty) the sprayer. It is your fert, you paid for it so don't give it away.

The last time I did Fert contracts I did like 6-7 in a 24hr period, starting from most money to least money. Also pay attention to where these fields are on the map. You do not want to be hopping back and forth across the map every other job. That is a big waste of time. I cleared over $50,000 and went through a little over 3 big bags which I was charged $800 each.

Like another poster said you have to cover about 85-90% of the field to complete a contract. When in doubt, pop into the contracts and look at your current contract it has a progress bar. As soon as the game flags the contract complete, shut off the sprayer and collect. There is no bonus for 100% coverage.

I liked the Kuhn 4200 in FS19 A trailer towed sprayer with a 32M swath and a decent sized tank. Kuhn also has the PF1500 which is a additional tank for the front of the tractor and holds 1,500L This combo made short work of big fields.

[reider]

Spraying is easy money. Use your own equipment and make use of the GPS Guidance too. In 2019 I made loads from it.

[fefinu]

Farm Manager with normal economy - my data shows solid fertiliser at around €380-400/ha. Using my equipment I'm making €1,350 per ha of fertilising contract as profit. If I factor in repairs it's dropping to about €1,150-€1,200/ha profit.

[DEERE317]

And in the name of thoroughness, equipment depreciation?

[humbe]

And in the name of thoroughness, equipment depreciation?

In the real world, tractors gets too old to be useful, but in this game you can keep the same tractors however long to do more and more, so what you get for it when you sell it is less of a matter..

Also, because in the game, maintenance cost is so tied to purchase price of the tractor, if you wanna play optimally economically, you should use cheap vehicles for jobs that don't need an expensive one, giving you less reason to sell old tractors even when you buy a bigger one for tougher jobs.

Thus, I don't factor in loss of value. Hard to factor in too though, as it's hard to know when you'll end up selling something.

[DEERE317]

Good point on everything be so price based.