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Old 26-05-2003, 08:08 PM
Jim Webster
 
Posts: n/a
Default eliminate fertilizer and herbicide steps in farming Concreteblock farming; Agriculture of t


"Archimedes Plutonium" wrote in message
...


I mow my lawn about 9 times per year and it is about 1 acre. Each mowing
costs me in about 75 cents of gasoline or 1/2 gallon. So, if I had my lawn
turned into alfalfa and then planted rows of corn, my yearly cost to grow
Organic corn would be about ten dollars. I am guessing that the special
corn seed that is herbicide resistant applied to an acre in the petrol

based
farming alone costs more than ten dollars. So, not counting the mower
versus the tractor and I can get a excellent Honda mower that lasts for
20 years for $300. but a tractor is what $100,000.


Hmmm
His excellent Honda mower does 9 acres a year, lasts twenty years, so is
good for 180 acres. It does this 180 on 4.5 gallons.
Ignoring fuel that is $1.66 per acre


Our contractor can mow at least 100 acres a day (small fields) with tractor
and mower that cost somewhere around the $100K new, but will also last at
least ten years.
In the course of a 3-month season he will do about 10,000 acres (some of it
two or three times) but will also cart slurry and do a lot of other jobs as
well.
So by my reckoning over the ten years and ignoring fuel, this is $1 an acre.
Mind you, to be a fair comparison we would also have to see how good
Achimedes's excellent Honda mower is at carting slurry.

Note Archimedes kilfiled me years back because I kept doing this sort of
calculation

Jim Webster