Crop Yield Assessment + general info

[inzainia]

**NOTE** this is a work in progress, im growing things every day as i play and updating this thread continuously. thanks to those assisting (staalker and others) with prices on particular items, its appreciated..

with halloween approaching, this thread may wither for a few days, but i will be busy again shortly after the holiday.

***Standardization of fields***

this is grown on a merging of fields 15 and 16 (i plowed them together making one big field) using the starter combine and cutter, potato topper, potato harvester(120k one), and fertilizing the fields.

***Field Yields***

Canola yielded 13,265
Wheat yielded 26,642 2nd grow was 26,601 (accidentally forgot to change seed type lol)
Barley yielded 24,401
corn yielded xxxxx
Potatoes yielded 87757 <--WOW!!! **this took me over 3 hours to harvest on my field (ouch!) the 120k potato harvester is painful to use.. but still wow so many taters!
beets yielded 76926 <--not quite as large as potatoes, but starting out, with an investment cost of around 174,000 for everything needed and a 6 row harvester was far less painful than potato's.
straw from wheat: 32156


***Other Income***

hay bale(square) 300
hay bake(round) 600
grass bale(square) 350? <--- unsure
straw: 80 per 1000 (sell at the hay building at your farm, also can be put in the feeder at the cow pen (the feeder closest to the liquid manure tank)


***What i'm working on next***
Corn eventually. i need almost half a million for the initial investment so will be a short while lol!


*** Basic Info***

ok, here i will list some basic info i have discovered, or people have listed in this thread for a general pupose use.

Grass harvesting: You may use many of the pull a long devices found in the loader wagons section of the store, or a profithopper(in mowers section) to gather grass. Cut the grass (found almost everywhere) and pull the loader behind you with it turned on, and you will gather the grass.

Hay harvesting: you can turn grass into hay, by using a tedder on it (tedder section of store) attach the tedder and run over the cut grass, then collect it with a loader wagon.

chaff harvesting: (havent done this, but i assume it is the leftover product on a field after growing barley or wheat)

straw harvesting: use a forage wagon on the straw lines in fields, leftover after harvesting wheat or barley.

**Animals**
Cows: feed them harvested grass, to produce liquid manure(usable with slurry tanks) give them hay to produce manure(usable with manure spreaders) feed them mixed combos to produce milk(<-guesing here as i havent done it, please let me know if you have!).
Sheep: feed them grass to produce wool.
chickens: buy them, and they produce eggs. no care necessary. but you must manually collect the eggs to sell.

***Tips and Tricks!***

For some quick and easy money, Buy a front mower,(costs 8k) and place it and a low end tractor (must be an argon3 75 or better tractor as the light blue starters need a weight for the front and have no connector for one) at the golf course or the camp site. (i placed one at the golf course as it has 2 missions tied to it for mowing and the camp site only has one, better odds) and go into options (hit escape then click the right arrow at the top to goto settings) and set mission frequency to 2 minutes. accept the mowing missions at the location(s) where you have mowers only, just deny the FEL missions that pop up, and do them. with a tractor and the front mower(put it on the back of the mower, its easier to mow with then while turning) you can finish these missions really fast, netting you the 4-6k for the mission, + up to 3k time bonus. 1 mission almost pays for the mower you buy! as soon as you can buy a second tractor, place your second starter tractor + another mower at the opposite place( for me it was the camp site) and just let the money roll in. 6-8k per mission, with them popping up ever 2 mins (on a chance of getting a mowing mission)= easy money!

Try to always keep atleast SOME of your harvested materials in storage at all times. you will regularly get great demand notices from places, and these places will buy the particular item for up to 2.5x the normal amount. ive sold barley at 1.9x. it seems to me, usually what i do not have, is what seems to pop up, probably random bad luck.

Potato harvesting STINKS! lol prepare to spend a LOT of time doing it unless you have the money to buy the large self propelled potato harvester!

sugar beet harvester tip..there seems to be a glitch with the GRIMME ROOTSTER 604, when it hits 100% load, it raises and turns off, this is normal, BUT if you tab out and move your trailer under it, it will not unload, which forces you to tab back to the harvester, lower it again and remain inside it,for it to unload properly. a fix for this, is when it hits 100% and stops, lower the harvester again once, then you may tab out to another vehicle, and once the trailer moves under it, it will unload properly.

be sure to see staalker's post on page two of this thread for some great info on how to finally make milk, the equipment involved etc.., thanks for the info.

more to come!

[Reactivist]

Canola is worth more but you get a lot less volume of it from a field, I have not accurately tested but the combine fills up much faster on the same field with wheat than it does with canola so it could be that the end profit per field is similar, also harvested canola fields do not produce straw for bales which brings in more money.

[inzainia]

Canola is worth more but you get a lot less volume of it from a field, I have not accurately tested but the combine fills up much faster on the same field with wheat than it does with canola so it could be that the end profit per field is similar, also harvested canola fields do not produce straw for bales which brings in more money.

good info, thanks, i forgot about bales from wheat and barley. ive no clue how much they sell for though, if someone could sell just one, (as i cant afford a bailing machine yet because im spending everything i earn to pay back the bank loan you start with!) i would appreciate the info. and ill add it to the first post.

growing a crop of wheat in the same field full yield, so we will know somewhat accurate size/samplings here shortly, ill add them to the above list as i go.

thanks for the reply

*edit* and of course the first time i DON'T grow canola, guess what?.... Canola great demand! lolz 1.9x the price.

[keisterja]

Regarding the comment on paying back the intial bank loan...your silos are full including the potatoe and sugar beat piles which collectively should generate enough to pay off your loan which some to spare.

[Evant17]

Regarding the comment on paying back the intial bank loan...your silos are full including the potatoe and sugar beat piles which collectively should generate enough to pay off your loan which some to spare.

If you are playing on easy, that is.

[York]

Canola is worth more but you get a lot less volume of it from a field, I have not accurately tested but the combine fills up much faster on the same field with wheat than it does with canola so it could be that the end profit per field is similar, also harvested canola fields do not produce straw for bales which brings in more money.

This is worth noting, after testing you get slightly more coin for a field of wheat than you do for canola without including the straw, havent tested the others yet but i will.

[inzainia]

[This is worth noting, after testing you get slightly more coin for a field of wheat than you do for canola without including the straw, havent tested the others yet but i will.

yes sir you are correct, in the OP ive listed the yields as i go and can manage buying the new equipment, i will soon be able to buy a square hay bailer, and ill add in the profit from each fields hay (the ones that produce it atleast.)

remember all, im playing on normal, so money is tight, but i just bought a deutz 430 aggroton (with the care wheels of course!) so i have my tracktor, now to move into potato equipment, then beets, then corn. all results will be posted in the OP post as i gain the information.

[Staalker]

Square bales are 300, Round bales are 600.

A friend of mine said that grass bales actually sell for 50 more, but I have not tested to see myself.


And don't forget that the value of crops can also depend on if you are using animals.

Cattle need food, and straw bales, corn silage or a mix of them will keep them feed and get you milk. I have 10 cows and get about 20k a day off milk. I have one field of corn I use just for silage, to feed them. The field usually gets me about 12k if I sell the corn, so using it for silage is more profitable to keep my cattle fed.

Also keep in mind that flooding the market will drive the price down.

If you grow a lot of corn at once, and sell it, the price will go down. By the time you are ready to sell it again, you'll get less than before.

It's best to grow a balance of crops, or rotate what you grow at once so you can keep prices stable.

At the same time the opposite is true. If you don't grow a certain crop for a while, the price will climb up because there is a shortage. And Great Demands will give you the best prices on a crop, but only at one location and only for a short time.

Timing is everything. I like to store crops that have been dropping daily, and wait for the price to come back up. Balance is the key in the long run to making money.

Animals are profitable, but the cost to get set up can be high. Getting the equipment to feed them can be an issue. However, wool and milk should always bring you more money than the crops you used to feed them. Except Chicken, which don't need to be fed at all. The eggs they lay are worth 11 a piece. Can make a nice supplemental income, but don't think to become a millionaire on chickens alone.

Cheers.

[Wiggy1990]

Ive been following this thread to get some insight into the crop values. Id like to thank everyone who tested various ideas. Seeing as im too lazy to do so, i appreciate the work others did. In response, specifically to Staalker, what equipment do you need to start up for cows? I have some sheep, and am just feeding them cut grass from the profihopper mower. Is that sufficient? I know the cows need more, but im not entirely sure on what is needed.

[Vaporblast]

Inzainia, could you please tell me what the care wheels are?
Thanks!

[ouhaha]

Hi inzainia,

I played yesterday for some long hours, even multiplayer. My feeling is a 1-2-3 rule, as follow:
around 10000 canola / ha
around 20000 wheat / ha
around 30000 potatoes / ha

All with fertilizer spread all over the field. IIRC another game I started, no fertilizer still means half of the harvest (like in 2011).

in 2011 wheat/barley was roughly twice the harvest of canola (looks similar in 2013). Corn was even more.

[inzainia]

Ive been following this thread to get some insight into the crop values. Id like to thank everyone who tested various ideas. Seeing as im too lazy to do so, i appreciate the work others did. In response, specifically to Staalker, what equipment do you need to start up for cows? I have some sheep, and am just feeding them cut grass from the profihopper mower. Is that sufficient? I know the cows need more, but im not entirely sure on what is needed.

from what ive seen, for cows, if you place just cut grass, they will work at approx 32% and only produce liquid manure. to get regular manure you add in hay also. to get milk (havent done this yet, only from reading) you need to buy the mixer feeder that combines all 3.

i only have 3 cows atm, as ive been working so hard to get the numbers im posting above using the exact same field setup, so that they are accurate yields, but i plan (when done with the above) to add a section about animals etc.. this thread will probably end up being a general info thread instead of just a crop yields and i will probably move it to the hints and tips section. so if it vanishes from here, look for it over there.

[inzainia]

Inzainia, could you please tell me what the care wheels are?
Thanks!

care wheels are dirt wheels, specifically for tractors pulling thingsand not harming crops as much. they have a bigger rut, and are thinner, but taller. imagine old style tractor wheels and youll have the right image

regular wheels are more get around multi surface wheels for hauling and on the go vehicles. (better traction on roads and hard surfaces)

although i think they may just be asthetic as i doubt theyve added in the details of traction in this game. (but who knows right?

[Vaporblast]

Thanks for the info!

[inzainia]

Thanks for the info!

you're more than welcome. more will come as i discover it so check back often