What is the best crop

[MoistLasagna]

Just Wondering

[Rickenbacker]

They're pretty much equal, income-wise. Grow what you like and hope for a Great Demand.

[4545287014728]

If you have equal amounts of grain in your silos, canola will get you the best price. Unfortunately, canola will also yield the lowest tonnage per field than the other crops.
Grow it all and wait for a great demand like Rickenbacker says, just do it.

[Rickenbacker]

Yeah, the crop prices are pretty much balanced against the yields, so you'll make about the same amount of money no matter what you grow. Price fluctuations notwithstanding.

[4545287014728]

Originally posted by Rickenbacker:

Yeah, the crop prices are pretty much balanced against the yields, so you'll make about the same amount of money no matter what you grow. Price fluctuations notwithstanding.

This is why my main focus is cows. I grow crops but mainly to support my herd. With 1500 cows I make about $670,000 per day in milk production minus expenses. I also sell manure and slurry to offset the expenses a bit as well.

[dirrtymartini]

Originally posted by Toxic_Penguin:

Originally posted by Rickenbacker:

Yeah, the crop prices are pretty much balanced against the yields, so you'll make about the same amount of money no matter what you grow. Price fluctuations notwithstanding.

This is why my main focus is cows. I grow crops but mainly to support my herd. With 1500 cows I make about $670,000 per day in milk production minus expenses. I also sell manure and slurry to offset the expenses a bit as well.

Wow. 1500??? That is one impressive herd! I thought I was doing good with 48. Time to expand.

[MoistLasagna]

Thanks!

[Sirrus]

Can we consider potato to be crop? If yes, then it is most profitable per hectare. There is only one problem - potatoes (and sugar beets, btw) require exorbitant sum of money on self-proppeled harvester, Tectron/Maxtron, almost 500K.

Of three initial crops (wheat, barley, canola) they all seem to be more or less equal, when it comes to profit from hectare. There is also "straw" offset income from wheat/barley, but to gather it you need some investment. IIRC cheapest forage wagon, from "Classics DLC) worth arnound 30K. Given straw price, you can calculate yourself for how long it'll take to return the investment.

On the other hand, I'm not sure we can consider "grass turned silage" to be crop also, but in long-stretch it also could be quite profitable: you only need to sow it once, no resowing, cultivating or fertilizing required. Yes, expenses required are not cheapskate's paradise either, but Ursus add-on offered more affordable alternative to baler (40K $), bale wrapper (ditto), and bale loader (10K $). IIRC cheapest tedder is 15K $ and Ursus windrower is about 4K $. Given that you'll get "almost instant" silage bales after wrapping, and if memory serves, each Ursus' wrapped bale worth around 5K, you can calculate how long it'll take to return the investment. Of recent examples, field 18, with immediate vicinities, gave me enough grass for 15 Ursus' bales.

[buddy.lee.dog]

I ahlustly think corn is the best but if you dont have tons of money and equtment ide recommend barlley

[Rickenbacker]

Originally posted by Sirrus:

Can we consider potato to be crop? If yes, then it is most profitable per hectare. There is only one problem - potatoes (and sugar beets, btw) require exorbitant sum of money on self-proppeled harvester, Tectron/Maxtron, almost 500K.

Of three initial crops (wheat, barley, canola) they all seem to be more or less equal, when it comes to profit from hectare. There is also "straw" offset income from wheat/barley, but to gather it you need some investment. IIRC cheapest forage wagon, from "Classics DLC) worth arnound 30K. Given straw price, you can calculate yourself for how long it'll take to return the investment.

Yeah, potatoes and sugar beets can be good, high yields compensate for the usually low-ish prices. But you do NOT want to harvest potatoes without the $500,000 harvester, believe me. Doing one row at a time is not as much fun as it sounds, and the AI helpers can't do it.

I think that gathering straw to sell will probably pay for the machinery investment slightly before the heat death of the universe. Don't do it. If you gather straw, use it for mixed feed and cow bedding.

[Rickenbacker]

Originally posted by buddy.lee.dog:

I ahlustly think corn is the best but if you dont have tons of money and equtment ide recommend barlley

I actually really like corn too, but mainly because it's such a nice color. Money-wise they're all about the same :).

Canola has one advantage: High price for low volumes. Thus it's easier to transport to the selling point.

[Nickname Pending]

Electricity is the best crop. Start with solar panels (I have 48) which got me about 120k a day then I moved on up to Wind Turbines and I only have about 7 or 8 but I make 550k a day.

[Chow]

Originally posted by dirrtygsharp:

Originally posted by Toxic_Penguin:

This is why my main focus is cows. I grow crops but mainly to support my herd. With 1500 cows I make about $670,000 per day in milk production minus expenses. I also sell manure and slurry to offset the expenses a bit as well.

Wow. 1500??? That is one impressive herd! I thought I was doing good with 48. Time to expand.

Funny thing, I only see about 10 cows wandering around, all the rest are Ninja cows.

Cows are the most profitable money maker in my opinion. If I bumped up to 2000 cows, I'd prolly get almost a million a day. I only have to plant a couple of fields of barley or wheat for the straw and harvest a buttload of grass. I grassed over about 8 fields just for forage feeding and I plant corn occaisionally for silage making. Daily Expenses range in the 20k-25K range. BTW I started out from scratch on normal with no money cheats. Ursus equipment rules for starting out.

[Sirrus]

Originally posted by Rickenbacker:

Yeah, potatoes and sugar beets can be good, high yields compensate for the usually low-ish prices. But you do NOT want to harvest potatoes without the $500,000 harvester, believe me. Doing one row at a time is not as much fun as it sounds, and the AI helpers can't do it.

Well, I wrote about Maxtron/Textron. And even if you have them, their working width is still narrow, so they are quite time consuming, if you like to get your hands dirty, and not get away with hiring help, of course. On the other hand, even if they are narrow, high yield usually pays for itself in terms of revenue. A friend of mine even says he finally found zen in gathering potatoes in this game.:)

Originally posted by Rickenbacker:

I think that gathering straw to sell will probably pay for the machinery investment slightly before the heat death of the universe. Don't do it. If you gather straw, use it for mixed feed and cow bedding.

In one of my parties (saves) I decided to refrain from using animals at all, tried to see what I can do without them, so there were two ways of utilizing straw - either plow it back without any refertilizing for the soil, or gather it and sell it. I still had forage wagon for chaff, so why not?
Otherwise, I completely agree, selling straw is barely enough to pay for Buhrer's daily maintenance. :)

Originally posted by ***CWC***:

Funny thing, I only see about 10 cows wandering around, all the rest are Ninja cows.

Strange, I have 500 cows, but I think there are more than 20 cows on that meadow.

Originally posted by ***CWC***:

Cows are the most profitable money maker in my opinion. If I bumped up to 2000 cows, I'd prolly get almost a million a day. I only have to plant a couple of fields of barley or wheat for the straw and harvest a buttload of grass. I grassed over about 8 fields just for forage feeding and I plant corn occaisionally for silage making. Daily Expenses range in the 20k-25K range. BTW I started out from scratch on normal with no money cheats. Ursus equipment rules for starting out.

Agree on that, especially on Ursus part.
However, cows profitability has another edge - they require extensive care, which consumes a cropload of time. I've been spending more time mixing their rations than doing anything else. Especially with "bale handling physics". :) "And I could be plating potatoes!":D

Sorry for being a bit carried away. I could be wrong, I've experimenting not that long after all, but my calculations brought me these results. According to my observations. each cow generates about 25 litres of milk per hour, consuming about 10 litres of TMR and varied amount other types of fodder (which are easier to handle, so I exclude that from calculations for now), Each litre then sold for about 1.6$. If my calculations are correct, then each cow generates about 40$ per hour. But to feed them properly we need a lot of equipment: front loader (if you can handle articulated Weidemann, then it's 26K, otherwise 83 or 100+), mower (if we choose Kuhn PZ then it'll be 37 for both), tedder (37), windrower (51), baler (at least 40 or 120), wrapper (40, if you have Ursus) and/or chaff gatherer (ceiling unknown, at least forage wagon from Classics for about 27), bale wagon (at least 3.6), mixer (40), plus 2 grands per cow, and a lot of time. For me to launch this project it took about 1.5 million. Yes, investment returned rather fast, but damn I want to hire help for mixing rations. :D

[Chow]

Originally posted by Sirrus:

Originally posted by Rickenbacker:

Agree on that, especially on Ursus part.
However, cows profitability has another edge - they require extensive care, which consumes a cropload of time. I've been spending more time mixing their rations than doing anything else. Especially with "bale handling physics". :) "And I could be plating potatoes!":D

Sorry for being a bit carried away. I could be wrong, I've experimenting not that long after all, but my calculations brought me these results. According to my observations. each cow generates about 25 litres of milk per hour, consuming about 10 litres of TMR and varied amount other types of fodder (which are easier to handle, so I exclude that from calculations for now), Each litre then sold for about 1.6$. If my calculations are correct, then each cow generates about 40$ per hour. But to feed them properly we need a lot of equipment: front loader (if you can handle articulated Weidemann, then it's 26K, otherwise 83 or 100+), mower (if we choose Kuhn PZ then it'll be 37 for both), tedder (37), windrower (51), baler (at least 40 or 120), wrapper (40, if you have Ursus) and/or chaff gatherer (ceiling unknown, at least forage wagon from Classics for about 27), bale wagon (at least 3.6), mixer (40), plus 2 grands per cow, and a lot of time. For me to launch this project it took about 1.5 million. Yes, investment returned rather fast, but damn I want to hire help for mixing rations. :D

The problem you are facing with mixed ration is the method you are using. I could never keep up with my cows if I did the bale handling thing, I'd be bale handling my game time away. I employ the use of 3 mixing stations, it is much like the futterlager you may have heard about only a mixing station doesn't require you to use the Giants Editor to place it in-game. Anyway, the mixing station can be found on FS-UK.com website. You basically dump your contents (grass, silage and straw) into the appropriate hoppers and the mixing station will create the TMR for you. I know that some people will say that it takes away from the realism but handling bales all day with 1500 cows and I would shuck this game into the trash. Some necessary mods to use with the mixing station are the alt tipping mod, a trailer that accepts multi-fruit/forage/mixed ration and a bucket that accepts multi-fruit. Other than that your typical forage wagons will come in handy.

Using the above mentioned mods will make cows easier to handle and more profitable. I will correct my numbers from earlier: net around $800,000 with $45,000 in expenses. That net number may vary, it seems the cows don't produce as much if you leave the manure bunker full, at least that's what it seems like. 1500 cows will produce massive amounts of slurry and manure so be ready to manage that. A manure selling point helps. I wouldn't recommend that anyone but a rich farmer with the right tools attempt this many cows.

Another tip about having 1500+ cows, plant and harvest many fields of straw producing crops, you can never have too much straw. Straw seems to be the only thing that I am short of on a regular basis.

Using the mixing station affords me the time to manage multiple fields and other farming tasks. On the other hand, I don't do sheep.

[Pang]

iv been using the breeding buildings and iv just sold 300 cows and sheep. i started with 50 cows and sheep and bought 10 of each breeding building, its a nice tick over and gives a nice pay out too, shame there is no sales like the pigs that we can drive the animals too but the shop does the job :)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=177608592
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=177608621
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=177608639

find mod here...
http://www.ls2013.com/farming-simulator-2013/breeding-farms-v-2-0-mp.html