The amount of time available to complete various field operations is extremely important in the selection and sizing of farm machinery. The number of days in which fieldwork can be performed during critical time periods must be known in order to determine the minimum daily field capacity required tor a machinery system. A system with greater-than-minimum capacity provides greater-than-minimum assurance that a particular field operation will be completed when desired. One with less than the minimum daily capacity cannot be relied upon to get the job done on time.

This publication is the first of a series dealing with the various management considerations involved in sizing, selecting, operating and maintaining field machines and implements. Presented here is a method for determining equipment capacities needed to perform various field operations, based on a predicted number of suitable fieldwork-days within a desired time-frame. Once you know the acres-per-day minimum for a given field activity, you can then weigh the effects of other factors that influence needed machine capacity, such as hours of operation per day, field speed and field efficiency.