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Buy a tile plow, pay it off in 2 days! |
I shouldn’t even tell you this story, because it sounds almost unbelievable, but here is how we spent 1 day tiling recently.
On that single day, we put in over 17,500 feet of tile (just over 3 miles). Now, in order to get that much done in 1 day, we had 4
guys working about 11 hours, but honestly, if it wasn’t our first day of tiling in 6 months, and if we had all experienced people,
we could easily have done it with 3 guys instead of 4. Actually, we could have done it with just 2 people if those 2 guys would
have worked about 15 hours instead of 11. Anyway, the point is, the guys put in a pretty big, yet entirely doable day.
Since a lot of custom guys charge $1 per foot, we literally saved $17,500 by doing this ourselves. In 2 days, then, that would
be $35,000.
A brand new Gold Digger 3-point plow costs about $16,000 (a pull-type model runs about $3500 more). The Intellislope guidance
costs about $8000. What I’m saying is that by tiling for 2 days, you should be able to PAY OFF a $24,000 Gold Digger
plow and Intellislope. 2 days!
Here’s the other thing. That day we were tiling the wind averaged 30 miles per hour. It was miserable out there, but we laid
our tile very accurately because WE WEREN’T USING LASERS. If you have lasers, you know what problems wind can
cause. With the Intellislope, we are able to accurately and quickly lay tile AND have it all GPS referenced for when we want
to find it a few years down the road. AGPS and Intellislope are the only systems like this that we know of. I believe we can
tile almost twice as fast and more accurately because of the system we’re using.
Here’s my whole point with this story. How many other things can you buy for $24,000 that pay off in less than a week?
Plus, we haven’t even figured in the yield gain we’ll get, which is substantial on its own. Getting our own tile plow is, in my
opinion, the best investment we’ve ever made on our farm…better than land, better than any other equipment, better than
anything. Land is ridiculously expensive right now. Instead
of overpaying for a quarter of land this year, why not take that
cash, invest in a tile plow, and make all your ground more>
productive, more valuable, and much easier to farm? This is
the year to tile.
By the way, if you’re looking for more information on tiling,
we now have a 2.5 hour training video available for purchase
at www.agphd.com. Look for it under the Ag PhD STORE
icon. This video will answer your questions about how to
deal with NRCS and your neighbors, how to lay out your tile
system, and how to properly install and maintain tile.
I know you’re busy, but why not make time for a job that can
earn you $17,500 per day? Sure, after labor and equipment
expenses, and if you only want to work 8 hours a day instead
of 15, you’ll probably only earn $8000 a day, but anything
that pays you $1000 an hour is a job you have to do yourself
on your farm. |
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