Oak Glen Farm

In most computer games there is an ‘End Game’ – a final scenario or a last boss to defeat. This is not true of simulation games. You just play until you either tire of the game or you reach a point where you are satisfied with what you achieved in the game. It’s a lot more complicated than that of course! I got to thinking, what do I think is my ‘End Game’ for Oak Glen Farm – at what point will I feel that I have reached my target for this Farming Simulator map? Currently I have Three fields under crops and two more dedicated to silage production……With the exception of Triangle Field up by the stables, my fields are to the east of the north-south road. Field 14, now known as Coberley Field and Field 13 – Manor Field, form a southern end to my territory whilst Ale House Field sits opposite my farm buildings with Spinney Field to the south. The glaring gap in my field ownership is 36, currently owned by Mason. I think that field defines my initial goal and my stretch target would be owning field 34 to the west of my farm buildings, also one of Mason’s although he never seems to have a crop in it! If I reach my target then current experience tells me that I will be too busy managing the fields that I own to expand the farm further. That, then is my end game for this map.

I’ve reached a point now where I will need to do a lot of rinse and repeat farming to get the £550k I need to purchase field 36. Ultimately, that field will need bigger machinery for ploughing and harvesting than I currently own although I did take on the corn harvest for Mason with my current harvester and my new Corn Header……This showed that it is possible to work that field with my current equipment, albeit somewhat slowly! I think ploughing that field would need a much bigger plough which in turn means a much more powerful tractor – something I might choose to hire at least to start with. A bigger trailer would also be desirable to reduce trips to the stores when harvesting and that raises the issue of where I’d park it – it’s a struggle manoeuvring the Anderson RBM 2000 around the farm yard as it is!

Anyway – with a lot of repetitive farming ahead, I’m going to reduce the regularity of the Oak Glen Farm posts again. I will post updates and screenshots from time to time. Last time I promised some Sunflowers – Here they are……And, yes, they do follow the sun! Now it’s time for an early morning harvest in Ale House Field……Then I’m going to plant Corn 🙂 See you all a few furrows down the road 🙂

Oak Glen Farm

Carpe Diem! – Not sure if that’s the right turn of phrase? I was keeping an eye on prices as usual and I noted that the Silage price was climbing quite quickly. It was already over the £350 level that I view as a prepare to harvest and sell Silage from my grass fields. So I harvested field 32 and the grass behind the chicken coop……The price was still climbing! It was time to drop everything else because it looked like that price was going to top £400 and it presented a great opportunity to earn a lot of money. With the bales from the first two areas loaded on the wagon and parked close to the sell point, I checked the state of the grass in my recently sown Field 4. That was also ready to harvest and although I’d have preferred to leave it a bit longer to get a better crop, I decided to cut and bale that field too. By the time I’d done that the price was on £400 and still showing as rising. I decided to fertilize the other grass fields while I waited. By the time I’d done that the price had finally stabilised at £403 per 1000l of Silage. Time to sell!!! Here’s the Fendt arriving back at my farm with the second load of bales from field 4…

The profit from the Silage was over £35k and suddenly I could afford to buy field 13 – which just happens to be full of ‘ready to harvest’ grass! So I bought the field that I’ve had my eye on for a while and rushed off to harvest it……There was a huge amount of grass here and it took a while to cut and prepare for baling……Ultimately I made 26 bales and had to transport them in two trips using the Anderson RBM2000…

All that Baling activity, including the straw bales from the earlier harvest earnt me over £87k! So as the day drifted towards evening I found myself in the position of having £80K despite having bought field 13 for £113k. Taking advantage of the exceptional price circumstances has really boosted my farm.

I went to field 14 East and sowed Oats……then I took the decision to buy a seeder for Sunflowers and Corn – the Horsch Maestro 8RC……Field 14 West has now been sown with my first crop of Sunflowers 🙂

The next tasks are to prepare the original field for the next crop and then to plough two new fields in the existing field 13. I really must consider naming my fields because the numbers lack character. I think field 4 will become Spinney Field and field 32 should be Triangle Field. I’ll see what I come up with for the others 🙂 Stay safe everyone and hopefully I’ll have some Sunflowers to share next time 🙂

Oak Glen Farm

Lots of work being done on the farm and a couple of unintended purchases see my working balance stable at around £110k. The first of these purchases was a weeder – the Einbock Aerostar-Rotation 1200, which as you might guess clears a 12m swathe of weeds at a time. Early in game I chose to do my weed removal using the Hardi sprayer that I have shared images of in action. The reason for choosing to buy that first was the nature of weeds – the pesky varmints can show up on your fields at any stage of crop growth and herbicide can be used to remove them at any time. A Weeder however can only be used before the crops get to their second growth stage so if you can only afford one means of dealing with weeds, herbicide is the way to go. With stable income now assured on my farm, I can afford to add a weeder and that in turn means I can take jobs from other farmers that specify using a weeder. Here it is unfolding for just such a job for Mason in field 36……and ripping out the weeds……The weeder requires 130HP, so the Fendt Favorit will handle it. Job finished and weeder folded up I head back across Field 13 and I can see that my crops in 14 are ready to be harvested……So that’s going to be my next task.

Field 14W turned in just over 17000l of Canola……but the price wasn’t as good as I would like so that went to the Silo at the farm to be sold when things improve. 14E produced just over 13000l of Wheat, most of which went straight to Empire Stores for a good price with a small quantity held back to feed the Chickens – overall profit from that field, including the straw collected after harvesting, was over £16k. The Oats in Field 4 were also ready and, again including straw, returned over £10k. This was a very good return from a small field but the harvesting was very tricky with such an irregular edge, so I have decided to return that field to grass for hay and silage production. To that end I prioritised, fertilizing, cultivating and sowing field 4 before working on any of the others. Here we are in Field 4 – the sowing is complete……that’s field 36, where we were weeding earlier, beyond the hedge. I limed both the fields in plot 14 and harrowed the lime in ready for fertilizing. Lime is an expensive necessity that fortunately only has to be done every 3 harvests. That was the end of my in-game day. Early to bed for an early start harvesting our original field next day.

Sun up and back to work…..harvesting the Barley crop. This produced a huge amount of straw – 21 bales. I decided that I really needed to cut back on the number of journeys when I do have a lot of bales to shift. So that other new purchase mentioned at the start was the Anderson RBM 2000. This cost £50k but I was able to get £26k back on the Ursus T-127 bale trailer so the net cost was £24k. It’s a great bit of kit capable of carrying 24 bales at a time. Here we are collecting the straw bales after the harvest……and loaded up ready to take them for sale……That’s 6K earnt from something I don’t have a use for 🙂 Last task for this post was fertilizing the plot 14 fields ready for our next crops. I was able to tie that in with fertilizing field 36 for Mason which earned me over £8k after buying some fertilizer. Looks like he has a good crop of corn growing there – a harvesting contract for that could be a good excuse for me to buy a corn header 😉 Something to think about. And I need to think about another field to buy – Field 13 could be back on the agenda 🙂