City Boy Question

[OldMan'sBoy]

I'll start by admitting that I have little if any general farming knowledge. So bear with me please.

My club is trying to get some millet planted on our place. It's four hours from my house and farther for some of the other guys. So although we have access to equipment and could do it ourselves, it seems like the easiest thing to do would be to pay the farmers to plant it for us. My first question is what would be a reasonable amount to expect to pay a farmer to disc about 20 acres and plant millet on it?

Second, if we decided to do it ourselves, what would we be looking at, cost wise per acre? I have a tractor and a disc (6 foot, probably) and a broadcast spreader that goes on the back of a 4 wheeler. How long will it take me to disc an acre? Will I have to disc it twice or would once be enough? There is lots of aquatic vegetation like lily pads and milfoil right now so I don't think I can just throw the millet on the ground. There won't be much bare mud flat when the water is gone.

Finally, beavers have it flooded now. How long will it take to dry out enough to hold a tractor once we get the beaver dams removed? We don't want to plant until around August 1 but we do need it to be dry by then.

Any information is appreciated. Thanks.

[HappyHunter]

Time in the field with an implement is dependent on implement width and speed. Six miles per hour with a 6 ft implement will get you 3.49 acres per hour. Our best results have been mowing, plowing twice, harrow or cultipack, flood, drain and then broadcast millet on mudflats. You can see you will spend a total of about 1 hour per acre to do it all. Not sure of your costs, but labor is between $10.00 and $15.00 per hour and if you have someone furnish equipment, you are probably looking at $35.00 per hour total. Assuming your are planting Japanese Millet or Browntop Millet you have a 60 day maturity, so mid August is good time, but you have to worry about it burning up if you do not get any rain after it comes up on mud flats. Good luck.

[SWAG]

$1,000 - $1,500

[jwarwick]

If it is flooded right now, you're looking at perfect conditions to plant Japanese millet for nearly free equipment cost.
1. Make sure the water has a place to go when you blow the beaver dam.
2. Blow the beaver dam early one morning. (They will wait until dark to start fixing the break, which will give your hole a good time to drain).
3. Spend the night locally- since your drive is so long.
4. Next morning dig out beaver repair to finish draining duck hole
5. Broadcast seed Jap. millet on sloppy wet mud flats (4 wheel drive ATV required)
6. be happy

[Double R 2]

Yep. Blow the dam and walk it on (free), drive it on (we use 4x4 tractor) or fly it on ($5 - $7/acre, but best to be on hand to supervise). Jap millet was running about $35 - 40 per pallet cheaper than browntop this year.