Machinery
My typical year puts 420 engine and 350 separator hours on a class 8 combine in corn soybean country.
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Everyone on here saying so low.... Wow we had ours purchased from Akrs, go over 1,200 acres. JD 9770 Ran for $55/acre this year just the combine payment, and repairs
Hired extra help one year we had a late harvest. He brought a 8010 and a 1200 bu cart and supplied his own fuel for 400 per hour. I thought this was to hi till I figured it back to the bushel at .11 cents. We were bagging and cut two circles in less than a day right before a storm sometimes it’s well worth it to hire the extra help and get er done
$30/acre. Running a 9770 and 9660 with 8 row heads and 35 foot flex heads. Full autosteer and mapping. Fuel, labor, repairs, parts, loan payments.
Cost per hour to own and operate my 8120 with fuel and repairs about $110 an hour. Pretty cheap cost per acre.
Run an old trusty Deere machine and do all my repairs. Come in at 17.50 an acre to run with a 6 row head. Thing that turns out being more money for me is trucks and all the bs that comes in with keeping them on the road during harvest.
Costing $14.00 acre for JD 790
Interesting topic. If you could depend on a custom harvester to be there when your crop was ready and not a week or more later it would be a no brainer to just hire it out. Used to run r62/r72 gleaners for easily less than $10/acre. But I would say now with newer machines $25-30 acre would be about right.
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Until replacement
A few years ago we sold our 2388 combine for a used 8230. We figured it out at the time that it costs us right at $180 per hour to upgrade. We will run this combine until we have 2500-3000 separator hours on it and look again. thats just depreciation.
My dad’s combine was around $25/acre for him. Payment and maintenance only.
To own a combine I am under $12/acre. Figuring payment and maintenance is divided by acres cut per year. I was lower than that to lease a combine for 5 years. That company went bankrupt. trucks, trailers, fuel, labor, etc should be added on for cost per acre to harvest. I consider $12 a good price for just the combine.
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I’ve been custom harvesting since I was 18 and I never buy new and do most of the maintenance. I charge $35/ac with grain cart and guys are complaining cause I want to increase it to $40/ac. I run fd75 40’ and 12row gerringhoff. Get me work where they pay $58/ac and I’ll be there.
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Custom guys dont want to run in high yield ground, it slows them down and more bushels ran through machines.
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Your probably able to do it for that because of the shear volume of acres you are running through being a custom guy. My cost is 53 because I am only running 3500 acres through my machine. I have tried older higher hour machines but the repairs made up for the less payment. I have settled on running a newer combine and trading more often...it’s the same cost as running older and fixing at the e...
The simple formula is purchase price of machine minus expected trade in value divided by expected years of operation. Add in intrest, expected fuel, and repairs per year. Divided byac per year get cost per ac. Do same for head(s) to get total per ac by crop. Lots of ways to work numbers to get lower cost. Shop the dealers over bigger area to get a better rental deal possibly. Safe harvest
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I leased a 2016 S690 and 12 row folding chopping head and 40 Draper for 11.50 an acre it has 450 engine hours a year
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I own a 8240 and twelve row chopper and 40 fd70 about 400 engine a year, been buying 1 yr old machines keeping two years and trading for another 1 yr old. Put through shop on the winter we keep it. We are trading for 90,000 for two seasons (done this 4 times in the class 8) Charging ourselves $53.50 for combine and grain cart. Cost has not changed for the last 8 years. Combines we are getting...
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How many hours are on your machine when you trade for a 1 year old?
What machines are you running? And it’s costing you 90k per machine when you trade?
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Northern Illinois
Where do you trade?
how are you guys coming up with these costs?
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We run 2 case class 8 machines(rotate 1 every year) at ~$32/acre.
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How many separator hrs are typically on the machine you are trading?
7000 per machine over 2 years.
~$32/ac for 2 new machines?
Just out of curiosity, how many acres does it take to get that number?
Kinda depends on how old you are willing to go and if you can do your own repairs and maintenance. We have to have one because we can't find anyone to do ours when we want it done. We also have small contours that the big machines don't do well on.we end up at $25/acre. Not sure what we'll do when this one goes for scrap.
I may be the only one who looks at opportunity coats as well....
A little of topic I don't own a combine but hire family. CIH 8230 12 row chopping, 40' draper for beans, 1000 bu grain cart with operators and fuel included $48/acre
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I run a little older one and it takes some creative fixes sometimes, but am around $10 an acre
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Only if you run it into the ground and don’t replace it....
Southern Alberta. we have 3 new holland CR 9080. few years old but big capacity. Farm 5,000 acres. All bought at richie brothers auctions for half or less than dealer prices. iron cost of $17-18 acre depending on parts which has gone up alot the last few years.
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Southen Alberta . I run 1 9770 jd. 3800 acres. If we get a good crop and a late harvest it’s cheaper to hire out an extra combine rather than owning a second. Im operting at about $22/ acre
Back 8 years ago we were flipping a machine for $10/acre now basically $300/ hr
we traded class 7 combine for 29.85 per acre
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Following.
We've got an old L3 Gleaner. Does fine, but finding some parts is getting challenging. Curious what a newer one would pencil out at.
Right now I would say we are around 30$/ac.