# small tractors big farms



## Georgewhite (May 30, 2012)

is it possible to manage and work 400 acres only using tractors under 50hp with four full time staff, the farm is a mixed farm beef and arable.
with 300 acres down to arable?


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## ErnieS (Jun 1, 2011)

Why would you want to restrict the size of your machinery?
Let's say you have 4 men operating 4 50 HP tractors full time. 2 men on 2 100 HP machines could do the same work. Of course, bigger tractors and bigger implements are more expensive, but labor is gone as soon as you pay for it.


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## roadbuilder66 (Jun 6, 2012)

I agree, u should get 2 100hp tractors, u can do the work with 2 tractors, and they are more powerful so the jobs u can do is greatly excpanded


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## Larry in OK (Jul 22, 2010)

Time is money.
As with any other tool you are better off using the right tool for the job.
My late uncle farmed 200+ acres of his own plus rented land with an Allis Chalmers CA and a Allis WC. That included plowing, discing, cultivating and pulling a combine as well as cutting, bailing and hauling hay. 
If it was my choice and the money was there I'd consider a couple of larger machines for the big jobs as well as at least one smaller tractor for utility operations,


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## foz682 (May 13, 2012)

50 hp may be a little on the low side but 2 100hp tractors has some downfalls too, bigger upfront costs for machinery, harder on fuel, if you have a breakdown with one then you could be down and out during prime harvest season, where having multiple smaller tractors would keep you going. 
A lot of the bigger farmers around my area have 3-5 tractors of varied HP and make sure 2 of them are big enough to run every piece of equipment.
Another key factor may be how good of a window you get (weather wise) during prime harvest, and what type of crops you plan to grow, if you have 300 acres of forage crops reaching the right maturity stage for harvest within a short time frame, then maybe the bigger gear would be a wise choice.


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## Georgewhite (May 30, 2012)

but the cost of a decent 100hp tractor (CASE IH of course) would never pay itself back as quickly as a smaller model, but then again i imagine the wages of the four staff would counter this, but then the value of having 4 men employed for small jobs such as ditching, repairs and maintanance.


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## MBTRAC (May 28, 2012)

Yes, it's possible but I can't see the economics/long term viability of it (unless there is whole lot of different factors comming into play which are unique to your enterprise).

We farm "Down Under", with the risk spread across a diverse range of family farm enterprises from broadacre, irrigation, to mixed cropping & feedlots. 50HP tractors may be a great utility style of tractors for small vegetable cropping, orchards & hobby farms where you may have only 1 "serious" tractor, but they'd really be pushed on max. 30-40acres cropping & won't run any decent sized balers or cropping implements (the smallest "earning" tractor we run are currently 130HP & we are phasing them out to pensioner "hack" duties like fencing, spraying, road maintenance etc. to upsize).

If you don't want to/can't invest in bigger gear, suggest share farming with someone who has the right size gear - With the limited margins in farming (unless you are heavily gov't subsidised or a not-for-profit charity) even 300 of the best arable acres will have margins extremely compromised with exclusive use of 50HP tractors & particularly so as you will not be able to "optimize" cropping time, fuel/machine/labour/maintenance inputs (& suffer through increase/accelerated wear rates the inevitable breakdowns/downtime by pushing 50HP well beyond their design intent) - As an aside in our neck of the woods it's damn hard to find/retain competent tractor operators & offering the opportunity to sit on a non-frills 50HP (possibly with only abasic cab) for hours on end may not attract the most "sympathetic" machinery "drivers"


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## st3gamefarm (Jun 24, 2012)

Grandpa farmed 2 sections with a pair of 1566 IH tractors, quite successfully I might add. 
But he also had a couple of smaller (old) tractors for other things. Like a brush saw on a 9N, and an old CAT motor grader to take care of the section lines.

Nowadays folks are going with a single articulated 4WD like Steiger, to cultivate 1200 acres.


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## grnspot110 (Aug 1, 2010)

I grew up farming 1n the 50's & 60's with 2-two cylinders; a 53-60 (37 HP) & a 58-720D (54 HP) One man & two teenage sons, four row equipment. We farmed around that much ground, part of it 10 miles from home & milked 20 cows. No reason 4 people can't farm 400 acres with 50 HP tractors! Might not be as quick as bigger tractors, but will get the work done. ~~ grnspot


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## Country Boy (Mar 18, 2010)

Can it be done? Most certainly. Is it economically viable? Probably not. When planting and harvesting crops, time is of the essence. You need to get the crops in during the prime window or it either gets too wet, or too dry and they don't do well. Case in point is this summer in my area. It was very wet this spring with over 7" of rain in two days. It quickly dried up, and we got our land worked and the corn in in two days time. Our larger neighbors decided to do their hay first (it was also ready at the same time) and then planted their corn. Our corn is nearly waist high right now, and their fields are only 50-60% germinated with huge bare spots where the plants didn't grow due to the extreme dry weather we had for a month after they planted. Their corn is 10-12" where it did grow and bare where it didn't. The same thing is happening all over my county. Had they gotten their corn in earlier, they would have a decent crop, but they are now forced to replant their crops or deal with the vastly reduced yields.

My grandpa and great grandpa farmed with a Farmall H, a Farmall A, and a couple horses. Great grandpa had a 10-20 McCormick tractor before the A. They got the work done, but it was very labor intensive and it took them all summer to get the hay in. We can get our hay crop in over three days (cutting, drying, chopping) whereas it took them three weeks to do the same with less acres. My parents stayed small with their equipment and growing up, we had no end of troubles with hay getting rained on, and crops not getting in or off due to bad weather. Since I partnered with my dad and vastly increased our tractor and equipment size, our crops always get in, and the quality of what we harvest is vastly improved.

I wouldn't just get all big tractors either, because running a large tractor to do a small tractor's job is a waste of fuel. My tractors range from 25hp to 150hp and they all get used for their specific niche. If you can't afford to buy bigger tractors or equipment, consider renting them when the need arises. We did that for several years before I bought my bigger tractors to figure out what size we needed. Renting was quite reasonable price-wise, and you don't have to do the maintenance and repairs on them either. Something to consider.


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