Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 07, 2011 08:48AM
My wife and I built a house a year or so ago. We have roughly 5 acres around the house that we decided to plant in alfalfa. I traded some parts for the seed, and the gentleman that cash rent our farm ground drilled the seed and had the field sprayed for grass last year. I believe they got 2 cuttings in the first year. Last year, we basically told them that since they did the seeding and sprayed it, they could 'have' the bails. This year, they approached me about cutting it again. I told them to go ahead and let me know how things were looking, and let me know what they thought needed to be done this year....re-seeding, spraying etc. On this year's first cutting, they got 9 round bales (not sure of exact weight, but good sized). They said that the field is looking great and probably wouldn't need to be sprayed this year for weeds or bugs. So my question is, am I entitled to partial payment from them for the bales?? Obviously, it is our land, and we pay the taxes on it, but like I said before, they do the cutting, baling, picking up the bales etc. So in your guy's opinion, what type of payment, if any do you think we should get from them?? Not sure if prices change from state to state, but we are located in Eastern NE. Let me know what you think. Its close to needing cut again so I'd like to discuss this with them, but I need some idea of where I should go with it.

Thanks,
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 07, 2011 09:31AM
Most guys will put it up for shares... Like a 50/50 split
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 07, 2011 09:37AM
I've been in the situation of a 66/33 split in favor of the baling crew.
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 07, 2011 09:57AM
50/50 split is more than fair. I do a lot of this with neighbors and I have the hay equipment. Remember the ground is yours, you paid for the seed, taxes, etc. Who is fertilizing?? should also be 50/50 with them doing it and cost of fertilizer split as mentioned. Should be fertilized after every cutting! I am in West central Iowa
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 08, 2011 02:58AM
I should add that in the 66/33 equation, the one third to the land owner, in this case, doesn't farm much anymore and only has 20 cows or so. In a 60 acre field, it's plenty of hay for that amount of cattle.
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 07, 2011 09:56AM
i feel if you wanted something for the hay the time to tell them would have been when they approched you in the spring not after you saw how much hay they got off the field. just my 2 cents
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 07, 2011 10:04AM
seems like they went through a lot of effort to get 9 bales off 5 acres? where about are you? up here a poor crop is 4 bales to an acre and a better crop is at least 6 bales to an acre! once baled for a guy who said it is a pretty good crop only to spend a couple hours running over his fields and maybe have 10 bales from the whole 20 acres what I charge per bale wouldn't even cover the fuel used for those few bales.
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 07, 2011 11:17AM
This should have been discussed in the spring before 1st cut. Once he gets it cheap he will always expect it. Where I live sometimes farmers are willing to barter a bit like offering snow removal for a few acres of hay to bale.
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 08, 2011 01:33AM
Thanks for all of the info guys. Like I said, these guys cash rent the rest of our land (have been for the last 20 years) and our neighbors. The Dad is 80+ years old and has been the one that I have been working with. He told me what to do to prep the land before they seeded it, walked through it with me while it was coming up etc. We get along with them really well, and I know they want to do the fair thing also. I'm not trying to go back and get money from them after the fact, I just told them in the Spring that we would see what kind of expenses they had in the field (other than normal cutting/baling expenses) and go from there. This being only our 2nd year out there, I really wasn't sure how to approach it. I'm sure we'll end up working out some type of deal, but I just wanted to get some of your guy's ideas, and I thank you for them.
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Re: Opinions Please (not pulling related) July 08, 2011 03:54AM
If you need the hay just hire them to do it, around here they get 25-30 a bale for putting it up, 50/50 isn't enough for 9 acre patch, if it was 50 acres that would be the standard.
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