Why Planting Corn Is So Expensive

[Music] good morning everybody I start this video out with a racing heart and a little bit of sweat at my brow because we are starting today the scariest part of our year farmer does the same thing over and over and over again every single year his whole life and all of that starts with planting season and that starts today the reason I say that I'm so nervous and not necessarily so excited is because yes yes spring comes with a ton of new beginnings this is where we start our year but I have to start this season out with so much trust in my knowledge abilities and my equipment all of this has to work or else there is no point in me farming if we don't get this job done right the rest of my year is no use it all goes to waste I have so much money sitting behind me in my tractor and the maintenance that I've done to it and the things that I've added on to it like the technology that's sitting in the cab and on top of the cab and the tanks that are on either side there 500gal tanks on either side that are full of 10340 that's our starter fertilizer I have money sitting in the planter the technology and especially the surepoint fertilizer system that you see sitting on it and then the seed that's sitting in those tanks and everything that I'm going to be doing today everything that's working behind me is working underground the whole job that we're completing is to put that tiny little seed at just the right depth into the ground at the correct soil temperature in the right conditions and I hope that what I'm seeing is true that what my monitors are telling me are correct we are planting everything right so that they sprout they grow and produce a good crop for me to harvest this fall so this video is kicking off my year as a farmer so come along with me Laura Farms to start the 2024 planting season it's crazy to say but I purchased this tractor 2 years ago it is a John Deere 2011 8335r it's kind of getting up there on the hours but we've taken really good care of it done all the proper maintenance and she's holding together really well behind the scenes behind the cameras when everything was turned off we installed these Demco side tanks and they are plumbed you see here they are plumbed underneath the tractor the plumbing comes all the way back here and connects to our shpo system and our Sentinel rate controller this is a vital part of our planting setup this is what's putting down the fertilizer to the seeds and that's what these colored tubes are right here that's what's going to give my seed the fuel and nutrients it needs to start out its life and last but certainly not least we have our John Deere 1720 planter it's a Centerville planter meaning that instead of having boxes that you fill individually on each row the seeds are all stored in these bulk tanks here and then sent out with a vacuum pressured system system out to every row and then it's got LIF assist wheels on it because this system is pretty heavy but it's a 16 row we can cover a decent amount of ground with this thing we bought this planter used and have put a ton of new parts and labor into it so it should last us for a good amount of time into the future and of course we have pepper who is not very helpful when it comes to planting but is definitely a good Mouser is that right pep in theory everything works should work hopefully but this morning we're going to take this out into the field plant corn and see if it actually works all right folks are you ready to go plant some corn start by opening up the door let's get this thing out in the wild I'll be honest guys the more I talked with you about how stressful of a situation this is for us every year the more I kind of psyched myself out I mean I definitely was nervous but the longer I started talking about it kind of got a dry mouth a little bit there's just so many things that could go wrong and do go wrong every single year if you look back and watch any of my planting videos over the last four years there's just always something I don't think I've ever had a day ever where everything has just gone smoothly from morning till evening maybe today I'll be a first huh we can only hope before we even start the tractor cab I'm just going to preemptively get a 1516 ratchet you could you couldn't hear Grant back there but he says enormous thank you to everyone who sent us variations of the 15 16s because virtually every part that has the potential to get Loos or fall off on that planter is a 1516 and the whole time we were working on it this winter we're like man where do they all go so thank you guys for your contribution to the cause it is appreciated and is being put to good use already squeeze getting in there yeah I got to be careful not to bump your head that's for sure I'm sure at some point during the season I'll be in a hurry to get in or out and something and just absolutely whack my head First Trust the proess moment is going to be when the tractor start which it usually does but you just never know you might be wondering why we have such a big shop such big doors that is because of pieces of equipment like this they're just massive they barely fit and honestly this is not a large planter on the market anymore there is so many more pieces of equipment that are so much bigger than this especially Planters honestly this shop and door is not even big enough for us our corn head does not fit in here and the combine barely does squeeze get in there [Music] squeeze Chief is a family-owned Nebraska based company comprised of seven diverse Brands Chief trusted tested true okay pushing in the first Hydraulics and we can see it right here on the vacuum it should oh turned green so we're good there and then the blower which will blow the seed from the tanks to the seed boxes that's what this one is that's our delivery system also runs hydraulic pressure to the sh Point fertilizer pump so now we're going to load all the meters with seed just press Stu on those two buttons and that drops just a little bit out the bottom that's rotating seed through all of the meters because if we didn't do that we would probably go for 10 ft without any seed in the ground row 13 classic try loading it one more time and then we'll go out and check it could be just a loose hose something blocking the way always feels like it's row 13 if it doesn't load I'll go out and check it all right I'll go check it [Music] and see folks this is why you have to start testing things nothing ever works right the first try oh look at that coming out I just needed to get the vacuum pressure started on that hose now we're good we purchased this planter off auction and we drove the tractor to go pick it up and I believe on that road trip in the tractor we went through the McDonald's drive-thru correct that was long time ago that was a really long time ago when we purchased this planner it did not have a fertilizer system on it so I contacted my friends at sharpoint and they came out and helped us install this system that it has now on it and this will be our third season running with it after getting to play around in that next app planter I think what we're really missing on our system is turn automation we got spoiled in that thing so much of planting is so technologically advanced but you still have to get out behind the planter and dig around this is a little depth gauge it's got some inches on it so I dug down there's a seed there's a seed there's a seed about 6ish in apart and about 2 in deep never forget to cover them back up when you're done we want them all to grow up big strong and healthy I'm finding a lot of earthworms down here which is very encouraging but I'm not finding a lot of water so there's water down there but most of it's very very dry like you get way down in here there's some moisture but once we get all this planted we'll just start the pivots right up give these plants a good shot at growing everything appears to be working but for some reason I just feel skeptical I think that farmers are people who understand faith more than anyone because pretty much every dollar we have is going in the ground right there behind us and we purchased this seed with the faith that it is going to grow like the coces advertise it will and that this fertilizer is really as good as the companies say it is and we can get out there and dig and I see that the seed is going in the ground and once we turn the pivots on and start watering it is just faith that they are going to grow and produce a good crop for us that we can Harvest it sell it and hopefully make enough money to do all of this over again next year here's our screen where we can see exactly how much fertilizer is being put down putting 2 and 1/2 gallons down an acre and those little green and red bars kind of look like you're watching stocks being traded that is it's going up it's going up here we go our seeds going out you can see on this we're going into the irrigated population now so where the pivot comes around here and this corn will actually get watered so we plant more corn here like I said we've got a lot of different monitors anyways we can see exactly that our Sentinel rate controller is putting down our Target rate and we have just a tiny little bit of fluctuation on each row but we're staying really close to that Target there's that you kidding me so it's working just the sensor on the seed tube is not working like it's putting down seed I it should be I'm we we've looked at it 10 times already just ignore it well I'll get I'll try to find a new one tomorrow but stupid 13 it's always something like I said but so we've got this here this 2020 seedsense monitor this computer is just translating all of the data that the planter is giving to us and putting it in colors and numbers that we can understand see look at that row 13 oh it's back to normal back to perfectly normal so this is telling us the rate that we're putting down and the singulation meaning the seed spacing and then that iPad is taking all of that data from the seeds ends monitor and putting it into the cloud so that we can access that from our desktop computers and use that throughout the season and then we can compare all of our planting data we're going to use this exact same system when we Harvest and then we can compare the data from planting to harvest for example where we planted a higher population did we see a higher yield or a lower yield [Music] a [Music] row 13 might be the death of us it's so annoying while the LSW tires always look so cool there is something really fun about duels and they just work so well on our operation we are row crop Farmers we Farm on 30in rows and these duels just split the row so nicely so we're not compacting the ground they we're right about to plant into we're keeping her right at 5 m an hour definitely not a high-speed operation but we're getting things done I was just pondering how I could fix our beeping monitor situation because I know that it is putting down the same amount of seed but our monitor right now is telling us that it's putting down more seed than the rest of the rows but I know that's not true that seed tube is just giving us an inaccurate readout that's why Grant said tomorrow we need to find a new tube and replace it so everything's working just fine but for the time being it's not beeping anymore which is really really nice being in the driver's seat of a tractor cab it's been a while we've done some jobs like root slicing um pivot track closing we applied a little bit of an hydras but there's something that's really different and special about being in a tractor cab for one of the two major farming operations which would be planting and harvesting this one I feel like is a lot more high stress Harvest you have a lot more visuals and you are truly harvesting reaping the fruits of your labor for the entirety of the year so we are just setting ourselves up for a lot of work in the coming months but I just know how good it's going to feel when I'm sitting in the tractor cab of grain cart or the cab of the combine a few months from now all of this stress and money will be worth it you'll notice that Grant and I are matching today I am sporting a lovely Bor of farm shirt and he just happens to be wearing the corresponding hat so if you're looking for a little pickme up this spring if you'd like to support us if you want to let all of your friends and family know that you know about farming and you want Flor Farms this is what you need to get you can find them underneath this video or if you just go to Laura farms.com thank you to Bunker branding for putting together these wonderful designs for us shirts are comfy hats make you look good and uh you can let everybody know know that you're a farmer it might seem a little bit lonely out here just alone in the cab nobody else but there is something that's quite relaxing about just sitting here in the silence being alone with your thoughts first off there's just a lot to focus and concentrate on and think about over here but this is the perfect opportunity to slow down we are only traveling 5 mes an hour and you can really just sit and be with yourself and I get the Unity to be by myself with all of you guys it's a really really unique experience I'm so glad that I started filming myself planting four years ago almost to the day being able to share this journey with you guys has been one of the more rewarding things I've ever done with my life and I excited to do this for the foreseeable future so I hope you guys aren't going anywhere okay folks it might be a tight squeeze am I going to make it past this pile of concrete blocks in these culs I better slow down I'm pretty sure I can make it I think I can nice and slow just barely [Music] cleared have Grant back there checking on my seat levels to see where we're at see what he says Grant says we are almost out so we're going to drive back to the yard and fill up and you guys are in luck the seed that we are planting is in bags so we are going to get our workout for the afternoon and throw some bags back in the yard lower down we're just going to turn that off pepper coming to say Hi how how was your day hm just popping up do you want to do you want to check out the cab for a sec come on up you want to go for a little ride in the Buddy seat why don't you watch us while we fill seat say hi pepper pepper says hi to everyone sorry Grant I just cannot help you throw seed bags pepper has decided that it's time to take a break so I have to to finish up this field we need a little a little bit more seed and unfortunately we are not able to use that beautiful new seed T that we have because this seed comes in bags these are 50 lb bags each one of these costs roughly around $300 so we're going to be lifting those heavy bags up this ladder not a set of stairs unfortunately it's this very tricky Balancing Act of you have this really expensive thing that moves around kind of willy-nilly on your shoulder and you climb the ladder then you pour it in but every single one of these seeds is valuable and important so this is not something that we're just trying to like toss and break open we want to make sure that every single seed from that bag is getting into this tank and then be planted into the ground so we're going to throw all these bags into these tanks and then we will be ready to go for tomorrow morning we are setting ourselves up for a full season of planting today went really well remember I wanted to call this day Zero for planting not technically day one we just wanted to get out in the field make sure everything works and we have a few Kinks that we need to iron out but we should be ready for a full 2024 planting season ready Grant [Music] planter is prepped and ready for tomorrow full of seed full of fuel tested TR we need to get that row number 13 a new tube but other than that we are ready to go thank you so much for riding along On day Zero of planting we will see you bright and early in the tractor cab tomorrow I hope you're ready pack snacks get a good night's sleep tonight and we will be ready to roll thanks for coming along and riding in the Buddy seat with me I hope you enjoyed today learn something new and we will see you tomorrow bye

Channel: Laura Farms

Views: 202,082

Keywords: Farm, Agriculture, Equipment, Vlog, John deere, tractor, machinery, construction, truck, informational, learning, work

Id: RJVO0qaQcBE

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024