Hello, 

I'm in the process of writing a business plan and I'm trying to get hold of some figures for diesel usage per acre for various cultivation processes....sub-soiling, ploughing, discing, power harrowing, drilling, rolling etc etc does anybody know ball park figures for these activities? or where I might be able to get the information from.  I'll be running a 110hp tractor.

Any help appreciated

cheers, 

Matt

 Matt. A good book I found was Resource Management: Machinery; Selection, investment and management, I think thats what its called, by Andrew Landers. 

Most of the useful stuff is in there if you have access to it.

Any more questions, fire away. 

Cheers Tim, that book looks really useful I'll check it out.

Matt

 Also John Nix' Farm Management Pocketbook is also good for this sort of stuff. Gives u average gross margins, prices of variable costs, price of all your cultivations individually based on an average and premium rate. Used it for my business plan alongside the book that Tim mentioned.

 Munchy

Matt,

   This is a very intersting subject,I have made comments on this thread before regarding the lower Density of Diesel and how this has affected Fuel consumption today,I however think there is more to be learnt from the overall Fuel consumption issue.When I bought my first Tractors a Ford 5000 was 72HP.I had a 5 furrow Plough and used to plough an average 20 acres/day and use around 20 Gal of Diesel.The Ford 8340 has a 4 furrow Reversible and covers 25 Acres but uses 60 Gal.The County 1454 which I suppose was 145HP used to use less than an 18 Gal Tank to plough25-30 Acres/day.The old MF 625 would cut 25 Acres approx and use about 30 Gals.Some thing is wrong.Any more Comments!!!

BB,

Perhaps the days were longer!

I do think that machinery manufacturers have to produce gear that farmers will buy. Rational choice is not always the major concern. Farmers like big machines, preferably bigger than the neighbours!

If you add air conditioning, sophisticated gearboxes, cleaner engines and very powerful hydraulics it's not totally surprising it produces a thirstier beast.

Overall I think there are some great tractors out there and with well matched machines they can be very efficient. Just as well to engage the brain in a bit of lateral thought before following your neighbour and just getting the latest bells and whistles and then thrashing up and down the fields doing recreational tillage.

I think we are just starting to give this whole subject the attention it deserves. It's amazing how $126 concentrates the mind!

Bon courage,

JC. 

Been monitoring this with onboard computer.  145 hp tractor but on very light land :

Ploughing 8 litres / ac; drilling 5 ; spraying 0.5  .  Double or treble for most people I suspect. One of the few benefits of light land !

Mark w,

That figure you give is a lot closer to my old figures than 25 litres /hour.FJ the figures I gave are per acre, yes Air conditioning is Energy consuming  but not that much.

We ought to be more precise perhaps. My ploughing is with 5 , 16 inch furrows at 10 or 11 inches deep and with a press. OUtput is about 30 acres in a full 8 hour day.

One very consistent figure is total fuel usage (excluding grain drier),which is always about 22-23 litres/ acre per year ( ploughing, drilling, x passes with sprayer, y with ferti spreader, rolling and harvesting but not baling). This average might rise slightly now we have no set aside to only mow. 

Broad brush is that TOTAL fuel use per ha on combinable cropping is no greater than 100 litres per ha.

markw.

        Well MW  mine would have been  an average depth of say 8-9" Cotswold Brash with 14" on my old 5000 and 16" on the 1454 County.I suppose you have got your Diesel figure from your annual consumption and divided it by your acreage.[ If not excuse me].I still do not really comprehend the 25/ltrs/hour for the 120 hp Tractor.What I am begining to think is that Flash Jauques is correct in that the new multipule Transmissons and especialy the Hydraulic Pump is taking one hell of a lot of power.

  To BB,.....  add to the basic, eg. County 145,  equasion that you quote:

....Constant power supply to the electronic system for the controllers ( black boxes as they are still known ) for engine, hydraulic system hitch system. transmission, front suspension system, A/C system ,field management system, ancilliary equipment at the back,  .... maintaining a hydraulic system standby pressure of  20 - 50 bar,.... maintaining a fuel supply pressure ...anything up to 2 bar ( could be more ) ,.... AC / heater fan of course, .....Radio / CD player on ....wider use of lights at night ( posters don't specify if their figures include this ), ......a complex p/shift ( or CVT )  drivetrain  requiring constant 16 - 20 bar hydraulic pressure,..... plus multiple clutch packs with static and rotating plates in close proximity, ...... introduction of E2 / 3 engines which, in some cases, are said to have  higher overall fuel consumption to meet the limits ( I can't clearly explain that, maybe someone can ? )..... Front axle brakes ( on some models ) introducing drag....front suspension activity ( quite a draw down on power when raising )...vast weights added to the front axle.....and and...

And I have to say that  today,  there is far less likelihood of an operator dismounting to set the plow or any other draft implement correctly.

Do you think the county would still return a low  galls / acre with this lot driven by the engine?

 Note:   From what I can recall most modern Specific Fuel Consumption figures shown in Tractor brochures give a figure for the engine loaded on a test bed using EC R24 ( or close ) at the time the engine itself is homologated at a certain power output by the manufacturer ..... which is fine, except that it bears little relationship to the final SFC once the thing is attached to the completed tractor assy.with all the bells and whistles ..unless the atractor manufacturer carries out these tests.

There,  I suggest you have the SFC variants attributable to different tractor specs.

It would be good to hear views from some tractor manufacturers.

TS

Did the Ford 5000 manage a 5 furrow plough comfortably?Was it a reversible?

Also,I seem to hear a lot these days about biofuel requiring more energy to grow than it produces.If a decent crop of rape produces 1.5t/acre at 42% oil ,that is a production of roughly 600L/acre.If the farmer uses a maximum of 40L/acre to grow the crop,there would appear to be a large surplus of oil output as compared to oil input.Obviously there is a large energy usage in producing the fertiliser and chemical to grow the crop.Can anyone on here quantify that usage?I would be interested to know just how energy efficient rape is for biofuel production.

If you used only the seed for energy, the ratio of energy out vs energy in is 1.75 to 1.

Using the straw as well for burning brings it to 3.75 to 1.

I dont know the figures, but I would imagine that whole-cropping rape would be even better. 2nd generation biofuels and biodigesters look to be very much more efficient; although I dont think it is feasable to run one on rape oil, you can use waste cooking oils in a blend at a very low concentration and it makes crazily large amounts of energy.

Obviously, if you are on a wheat/rape rotation and bale your wheat straw for sale, IMHO it would be criminal to bale and remove your rape residue vis maintaining some level or organic matter unless you are bringing in sludge or compost.

A ratio of 1.75:1 would work out at   600L oil produced for 342L oil input.If we have established that about 40L is used by the farmer to grow the crop,then the other 300L must be used in the fertiliser,haulage,chemical and proccessing industries.More than 7 times the farmers usage.I didnt realise fertiliser production used such massive amounts of energy.Do we have a break down of where the energy is used in the production of rape?