Grain Storage

reilig

I know nothing about growing, harvesting or storing grain. But future expansion might give access to land that would be suitable for growing it. So I'm curious.

Who here grows grain? (Not Wholecrop)

How many acres?

How is it harvested?

How is is stored? Is it dried/crimped? Are there any other ways to store it?

What does it cost per ton to grow in an average year?

Username John

reilig wrote: »

What does it cost per ton to grow in an average year?

Hi Reilg,

Links below might help...

I asked this is a thread in the Spring time here

ManofFeeling gave a good link to Teagasc doc on growing.

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

I know nothing about growing, harvesting or storing grain. But future expansion might give access to land that would be suitable for growing it. So I'm curious.

Who here grows grain? (Not Wholecrop)

How many acres?

How is it harvested?

How is is stored? Is it dried/crimped? Are there any other ways to store it?

What does it cost per ton to grow in an average year?

I suppose you don't know unless you try, but is it just another thing to be worrying about Reilig? ie sowing/spraying/harvesting/storage....?
Is it to fill the creep feeder? Have you looked at other options ie. buying in grain off the combine, rather than buying bulk concentrate?

If it is for wintering dry cows would you think about a fodder crop?

I'm sure you'I have the calculator out before you commit to anything.

bob charles

I buy enough of it and grow some of it and nearly always works out cheaper to buy. I find it hard to see how cereal guys make it pay, suppose they are working large acres.

One great thing about growing grain is you can get a rotation going and you will improve the fertility etc of your ground as if you dont use allot of fert on grain you end up with nothing. If your a small grower you will get shafted on seed, and especially spray. other side of the coin you will have "free straw" and mixed farming has always paid, specialization of farming has failed miserably in EU.

Bet you couldnt grow wheat for €150 - €160 t as is going to be this harvest price :eek:, I would be at nothing anyway

I have stored it in most ways known to man:rolleyes: and it depends on the setup and usage levels to say which is best, and feeding levels.

mf240

If this is good land then dont overlook it's potential as silage ground. Which if you graze late and early will shorten your winter and may reduce meal bill.

Aftergrass would probably do more for strong weaned calves than than grain.

It's a lot of messing for little return IMHO.

reilig

It's so far from home that silage for own use is not an option. The piece of land hasn't got great facilities for keeping cattle. And a daily visit to look at cattle is not an option. The straw would be used as feed - we currently pay €20 per bale for straw at home. If a grain crop could be used to offset ration useage on our own farm, it might be a small winner as we are currently paying up to €350 per ton for quality ration.

Arable silage might be an option as bales would be lighter and easier to transport than grass silage.

Muckit

Sell up the home place and move to Galway altogether Reilig, then you can have your cake and eat it

nashmach

Grain growers here and keep some for our own finishing enterprise also.

All our own gear bar combine so can't help you with that piece but out of all, the 12m sprayer and drill are the key items.

Have sprayed 20 acres in 3 hours with a 12m 600l sprayer.

Cut as low as possible moisture and turn in shed with loader and then tip again - only heaped a few feet.

We have our own roller mill so grind during the winter.

Looking at costs though - for this year I would agree with Bob - not looking rosy!

reilig

Muckit wrote: »

Sell up the home place and move to Galway altogether Reilig, then you can have your cake and eat it

Who said it was Galway?

Sure that place wouldn't grow grain!

The place I'm talking about is a little more exotic than that!

Miley2

We have spring barley here. We have our own roller and it is used in TMR for finishing and also makes up ration for weanlings.

As for cost I agree with Bob on seed and spray, most years it just about makes sense to grow our own, this year might be different with prices set to fall

freedominacup

reilig wrote: »

I know nothing about growing, harvesting or storing grain. But future expansion might give access to land that would be suitable for growing it. So I'm curious.

Who here grows grain? (Not Wholecrop)

How many acres?

How is it harvested?

How is is stored? Is it dried/crimped? Are there any other ways to store it?

What does it cost per ton to grow in an average year?

Honestly reilig don't bother getting involved esp in growing it for grain. Wholecrop possibly. A neighbour of mine has a share agreement with a local grain grower where they both end up with around half the crop each with a small amount of money changing hands each year depending on grain price. The grain grower does everything in this case from ploughing to spraying off for next years crop. The husbandry in grain growing is as complex as any other enterprise, if you can't do your own you're bound to make (expensive) mistakes, if you get someone from a merchant to "walk" the crop for you, you risk being taken for a ride on the inputs. I don't see myself growing for grain again any time soon and we always had some grain. I will grow wholecrop, tried spring barley for the first time this year and so far have been pleasantly surprised at the reduced inputs for what looks like a good crop so far. Not comparing this year to last year but in general. I haven't made up my mind yet but we might try to buy some crimped wheat over the next month. I know for certain we couldn't grow it for much less than the €130/€140 that seems to be now on offer this harvest.

grazeaway

have to agree with the lads above. plenty of mixed farming round here and lots of old fraser grains mills in yards but very few have been run in recent years. the costs of growing it alone would make it proative for a start espically if you had to get a contractor to do all the work. treatign and storage facilites are not cheap either. if you really wanted to go the grain route i'd say buy off the combine and get a lorry load up to lietrim get it treated and blown into your silo rather then growing it your self. i assume you have a silo/meal bin.

a few years ago there were a few mills had very taking in grain from famrers, drying, rolling and then transporting it back to the farm and blowing it into the silo.

that said the inlaws store it in an old shed but have grain augers and elevators to draw it into a smaller hopper over the crusher. they grow their own but have had the facilites on the farm for years and own most of thier own gear.

Farmer Pudsey

reilig wrote: »

It's so far from home that silage for own use is not an option. The piece of land hasn't got great facilities for keeping cattle. And a daily visit to look at cattle is not an option. The straw would be used as feed - we currently pay €20 per bale for straw at home. If a grain crop could be used to offset ration useage on our own farm, it might be a small winner as we are currently paying up to €350 per ton for quality ration.

Arable silage might be an option as bales would be lighter and easier to transport than grass silage.

Arable silage bales are hard enough to get light than silage bales. With arable silage you get caught with a harvesting window. Also if drawing a distance you need to make sure bales are not damaged. Did you consider crimping or getting a merchant to dry and roll for you. Another choice would be a hybrid or Italian with red clover and cut all the time getting good quality silage. I know you said silage was not an option but if atruck can access it silage may be a viable option. You could get 35 bales/acre from it. You need never graze just cut all the time just watch for harvesting windows.

bob charles

how far is too far away, under 20 miles silage bags are an option. artics looking for work during the winter will shift it for €3ish a bale

F.D

if it breaks even this year you will be lucky, but we grow 20 acres of crops every year, we use a contractor to do everything include manage the sprays etc, we keep a certian amount of straw and sell the rest, our merchant supplies seed fert spray, and when the harvest is complete we settle up, it will cover the costs and a bit along with it, but we have not enough stock to graze it so its keeping the land in production plus keeping it in good order, this year we had a lot of our own dung and we imported pig slurry to reduce fertilizer costs, so if you could get into a cycle of doing that it would help
It makes you wonder how grass grows when you do soil test for trace elements when you see it turning different colours and see what the soil is actually lacking in
If you are going to go into it try oats for the first year, they are not relaint as much on ph and fertility been correct and its not bad feed if your are keeping it
if we could get in a position to afford to pay for the seed and spray and use as much fym and slurry as we could to grow the crop i would try and hold the grain for ourselves

Dont be daft

We got out of tillage. We've an aeration system built into the floor of a store and I still don't see how growing it ourselves would stack up.

We buy off the combine from a few lads that are cutting 600-700 acres minimum and even for the last few years they've been tight. This year they'll break even, if they hit yield target.

pg141

Why don't you set out the land to a tillage farmer and do a deal for some ton's and straw... Tillage farmer gets a future sale and you get a supply with no hassle other than to store it, don't know anything about that so won't comment