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Somehow I found myself with two crops approaching maturity at the same time – it seems that the maturation cycle is longer for Soy Beans than for Wheat. Although I could have guessed at that in the real world, I hadn’t realised that it happens in game. Additionally, both crops had areas of their field that were less mature. In game terms that means waiting for all parts of the field to be ripe which narrows the window for harvesting by a crop-growth cycle. In those circumstances, I decided that I couldn’t tie myself up in other farmers contracts for the time being. Instead I pushed on with my field 4 project – it’s time to surgically remove some trees.

As mentioned in the previous post, the idea is to expand the field and thus increase my grass production for silage / hay. I made a start on the north side of the field, leaving the shrubbed area near the gate but cutting in further along. The amount of space available for use behind the trees is immediately apparent……however, I did find a couple of old hedges in amongst the trees that hint at old field boundaries and I’ve decided to leave those in place. I’m also leaving the trees closest to the current field boundaries.

Removing trees in a proper forestry setting is something that you can get specialist machinery for and if I was farming on a Scandinavian map, for example, one aspect of my farming might include using such machines. But Gloucestershire is very much arable farming country so I’m using a chainsaw to chop down the trees and cut them into transportable pieces of timber. The Massey 3090 is hauling the wood away in the Metaltech trailer……From previous experience I know that the log-forks are useless to picking up downed trees, so I’m using a manure fork which works a lot better. The one piece of specialist equipment I have bought is a stump grinder. After taking away the first couple of trees, the field already looks a lot bigger when seen from the road……The project will continue over the next couple of days with the wood being sold to boost imcome temporarily.

As with the last harvest, my two crops became fully ready in the late evening – around 21:00 so we did a night harvest in both fields. My Soy beans went into one of our farm silos as the current price is not very good. 17000l of Wheat was kept in the Metaltech TB20 trailer overnight as I kept an eye on the prices. A residue of of around 1600l in the harvester went to the Chickens. The flock is growing – there are now 54 hens – and there is a steady flow of eggs. The Seven Springs Inn needed some of those and at over £4 a litre, I took a box of 150l there first thing the next morning to get a nice £612 for very little work 🙂

With the sun up I found prices for Wheat still volatile, but the main farm was again offering a very good price for silage – I guess their Cows need some more Total Mix Ration. So it was time to sell off the remaining 23 silage bales from my stock……that’s close on £34k earnt, which is why field 4 needs expanding! Mid-morning and with the offers for Wheat stable, I sold my crop at Hill Top Stores for close on £13k. I’ve also collected the Straw Swath from the wheat and sold that

Funds are improving and although my main next purchase is a more powerful tractor, I have splashed out on a workshop facility for my farm to stop the regular trips to the dealer for maintenance and to change between narrow and normal tyres. It’s a cheap open shed but it’ll do……A quick note on adding buildings to farms. The price of the building is quoted at the shop – In this case £7500. But there is a hidden cost that can really hurt you financially. When you place the building, any terraforming required to smooth the land where the building is going will be charged to you as construction costs and on bumpy terrain they can be eye-wateringly high. I had two possible locations for the placement of my workshop and this was the flatter of the two. Even so, the terraforming added nearly £1200 to the cost. If I was building a sheep facility in field 4, which is definitely not flat!, I might well find the cost of the work exceeding the cost of the facility itself and by quite a large margin. It would be nice if the game told you how much cost you are going to incur, but it doesn’t. So, be careful where you place your buildings!

I now have two fields to prepare for their next crops and a crop of Barley approaching maturity in 14 West. I also need to harvest some grass and make a new batch of silage bales. This game certainly likes to keep you busy!!!