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Saved the family farm. Now what?

11,942 Views | 71 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by aalan94
SWCBonfire
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As someone who has been involved with pecans most of my life, it's almost become a dead end for anything other than small scale hobby purposes, and even then with someone else who will maintain and harvest them. It is a labor intensive business that requires mechanization and capital to operate on a profitable scale (most of which is out west, where they have laser-leveled orchards that they flood irrigagate and can harvest with sweepers and windrow harvesters).

You will need for conventional, small scale production of non-flooded orchards:
*pto driven aerial sprayer & low profile 60+ pto hp tractor (heavy on the plus on any large trees, or an engine-driven sprayer)
*fertilizer spreaders are usually available to borrow
*trunk shaker and generally a 100+hp tractor w/a steel canopy, or boom mounted, self-propelled shaker
*hydraulic stick rake and lightweight tractor (optional/ usually only on natives for harvest, but great for cleanup in orchards)
*utility tractor and harvester
*spare tractor/ harvester for when that one breaks down, and it will break down
*precleaner and storage trailers/gravity boxes/grain buggies
*cleaner with inspection table
*either sack in individual bags or a conveyor to load bulk onto a dump trailer or gravity box.

So it takes at least two people who work their ass off all day long and then can operate under-designed machinery with gentle precision just to get the pecans off the ground, and then you have to clean them and bag them.

Most have no clue what they are getting into. If this sounds like something you want to take all your vacation time to perform from your paying job, I'm sure Pape's in Seguin can fix you up.
aalan94
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Thanks again for the advice. I closed on the farm this week. It is mine.

As noted, I'll most likely do some small fun (for me) kind of operation and keep the lesees on the rest of the land, but I wanted to hear ideas without tainting the jury pool. The wedding location came to me a while back. Also the cabin rental. Another idea a buddy of mine pitched was a boat and RV storage yard. I think we're too far out of town for that, but there is some odd logic for it. Still, I'm not sure I want to get up every morning and see that out my window, even if it's a quarter of a mile away.

Hunting leases are an idea, but I'd almost like to keep the hunting for my friends and possible work-related networking down the line. I did see this comment:
Quote:

Only do this if you're good with finding shotgun shells everywhere you walk for the next 40 years.
In regards to this, first of all, if you shoot and don't pick up your shells (so long as you can find them), you're a dirtbag. But it does happen even to the best people. We once did a controlled burn. Funny how many lost live shells were out there. You could hear them popping off periodically.

Again, regarding the wedding venue idea:
Quote:

We thought about that at our place. Decided against it due to possible awkward situations arising and lawsuits for refusing certain couples.

That's easy to solve. I'll just build a 20 foot statue of Trump and those people will never come.
 
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