Fresh Fields

Winter in Osada – An exercise in whiling away 3 months!

December… At least there was a ploughing job for a neighbour in the first week…

…And the view in the early morning was worth getting up for😎 In the second week I took the Zetor and our new sprayer over to field 40 and applied the first dose of fertiliser to my Wheat crop…

…The new sprayer works well although it can be a little tricky to manoeuvre at the end of each pass.

The other activity in December was the selling of my stored grains – Wheat, Oats and Sorghum. I did get good prices although it was not the best. I think I need to have a target figure in mind and be prepared to sell when that price is reached. Hanging on can be counter productive. In the end, all that really matters is that the prices in December are better than those in August😅

At the end of all that selling I have enough money in the bank to buy a planter but I’m faced with a difficult choice. There’s a couple of older John Deere types that will cover 6m but don’t fold. There’s a more recent Agro-Masz one that will only cover 3m on each pass and a very modern Kubota one that will do 4.5m. Prices range from €11k – €29k. I’m leaning towards the Kubota but that will leave very little in the account. With monthly maintenance costs running close to €400, only having around €2k in the bank at the start of January would leave the farm in a poor fiscal position. So I’m going to wait it out and see what we can earn when Spring comes.

January… Cold…