A collection of all the things I've done this year that hasn't been shared on Dig Drive DIY. This video is about all of the farming I have helped to do over the past year.
It’s fascinating to see kind of a big picture overview of a lot of the components working together. I think a lot of people don’t realize all of the hard work & planning that goes into not only feeding America but many other countries as well. A big thank you to you & all of the farmers who provide for our country! 🇺🇸
Neil, about halfway through this video my neighbor dropped by to see what I was up to. It wasn’t too exciting… I’ve been making Christmas gifts for my grandkids and neighbor kids. And will be dropping some dead trees, in my woods, for a couple that need it to heat their house this weekend. So, I was sharpening and servicing my chainsaws. As I said, nothing exciting…. Until he told me what he was doing… all day yesterday he averaged 38 acres an hour surface disking manure and fertilizer into soybean fields in prep for next spring’s planting. He is a full time FedEx driver and part time beef farmer. However, during weekends that he can break free… he hires out to a huge grain farming operation nearby. As he explained the role of GPS and automation of the equipment… it made a lot more sense to me what you were talking about. And, let me tell you… the hours I spent, in the ‘60s, planting, cultivating, plowing, haying, and such seemed paltry efforts by comparison. A 40 acre field would have taken me all day to shallow disk. He was doing the same job at a rate of 38 acres/hour! In other words, he would have done the whole field in the time I spent taking my lunch break! My, how times have changed!!! Thanks for the peek into modern farming. It is a wonder that I long to understand. I’ll send you an email soon about a problem that I have with my soil… it vexes me greatly but, may very well be child’s play to you… just like modern farming, this problem is one I long to understand! OK? Again, thanks for sharing he informative story. It was a pure pleasure.
Hey thanks Dave. Yes, the technology woven into modern agriculture is astounding! This video didn't even scratch the surface of what is on the horizon. I like hearing about your neighbor that gets to help out on a large scale farm. We have lots of part-time and retired guys that get to pitch in with whatever time they have to put towards it. There's a lot of local farmers that can use the extra help. My dad always talks about how long it took them to farm what they had back in the '60s. He would spend all week on an Alice Chalmers WD plowing just the field around their house! Fortunately, we still have the WD, but only a fraction of that field remains in family hands. I'll look through your email with your soil concerns. If I can't solve it, I've got a whole army of consultants in our network that or I was willing to lend a hand. Thanks as always and have a great week!
I like the sale bill from the farm looks a lot like my great grandpas. We had it screen printed on some thin metal and gave it to dad to hang up on a nice plaque. Will last forever might look into that urself!
I grew up in a small Iowa town (>400)...Spent a good part of my summers doing farm work on a much smaller scale...Walk beans, bale hay, etc...Interesting to see where things have gone since I last walked a field.
Growing up in Eastern Iowa in the late 50s early 60s. I was a city kid ( think Hawkeyes) But we visited "Farms" weekly. Farms had cows, chickens, pigs, some had goats or sheep, All had 1/2 acre vegetable gardens, almost all had two dozen fruit trees, grape arbors . All had woven wire and barbed wire around the fields. Not many ponds at all, That was for pasture. The cellars had 12 different canned goods and potato's. And the neighbors on all sides knew who was supposed to be where,when. And Who was not supposed to be there. . To me 85% of the rural people are in the Ag industry. They call themselves farmers , but it's a misnomer. In my mind anyway.
Another great documentary. I think the difference with Neil's videos is that he narrates the footage. Lots of other channels do a good job but just in scene editing. I think the narration binds it all together and makes it easily understandable.
This was interesting! Near the end of the video, you talk about sitting back, enjoying the ride and doing all sorts of thinking, that is me mowing my lawn. I wish the mowing would last longer and look forward for the next time. Thank you for posting!
You are correct Neil, a little windshield time on a tractor is good for the soul. I've solved some of the world's biggest problems tilling up a field. Unfortunately, no one listened to my solutions. Lol. Thanks for sharing this video. Stay safe my friend.
Growing up we had 4 chicken houses. The local dairy farmers would have us use the spreader truck and put it on their fields, the locals would always LOVE those days especially the foggy damp days the most lol! The Chicken manure is FULL of nitrogen and ate the front loader bucket up on the 2001 JD 5410.
As a Kansas boy trapped in Florida, Man, I absolutely loved this installment. Loads of "in tractor' content which I never get enough of. I also watch a lot of "Cole The Cornstar" I think this was some of your best work Neil ! ! ! "LIKE" button has been torqued to the manufacturer's recommended specification. "CLICK"
I really enjoyed this one. Makes me long for smaller town life and that I really respect what our farmers take on to ensure ethanol gets in a tank and food on a table.
That 3155 is absolutely beautiful! Those too are my favorite style John Deere ever! Reminds me of my old 420 garden tractor! From the stickers down the hood to the steering wheel! Great video too throw these in it was really good!!!
Thanks for sharing Neil! I was expecting you to actually show a picture of a tractor parking sign though. I remember stopping at a truck stop in Iowa while travelling and parking next to a combine parked in the lot. The farmer probably stopped for lunch like you did. I had to get a picture because it was so much bigger than I realized a combine would be.
These videos are usually very good, but in this one, I *love* how everything is identified by name and described. That’s very useful to me, since I don’t know any of that. Thank you!
Thank you for my new word of the day! An agriculturist, agriculturalist, agrologist, or agronomist is a professional in the science, practice, and management of agriculture and agribusiness.
I can smell that chicken litter watching this. Everyone was complaining this year due to it being so dry when it was spread. Im down east of Muncie and most of ours comes in from Versailles and Ansonia Ohio across the state time. Pretty smelly stuff. I grew up by a hog op that would use tanks to spread liquid hog fert.. neighbors loved that too
@@digdrivediy very much. But the last 20yrs Ive seen so many "city" people move out and complain. Lessons you learn. Harvest thru fert season dont wash your vehicle and get mad its dusty 30min later..😆 Ya he was likely removing a stump...
Love to see your videos pop up Very educational and I have to admit completely jealous over here I would love to sit back and run one of those tractors Thanks for all your effort and time to post these videos
I think this is been one of your best videos and all of them are really good. I love how you explain things that most people wouldn't understand I'm come from a farming environment so I understand a lot of stuff that most people wouldn't and you do a very good job of spreading the knowledge. Thanks! 😀😀
Wow, thank you! Sometimes it's tough to know what's enough and what is over the top when it comes to explanations. Really appreciate the kind feedback.
I give this video 2 thumbs up! It was extremely interesting to learn about fields and crops. I've lived in the middle of a corn field in Wisconsin but my family never had any thing to do with farming. I'd love to see another video like this one.
I love your videos. This one was really an eye opener about technology in farming. I grew up in the country were I saw tractors and combines every day and I miss that. Keep up the good work.
Interesting content Neil, lots of large and unique pieces of equipment and a good amount of science that goes into crop yield, thanks for sharing. I should mention one thing about RU-vid channels and how I find them, other than YT suggestions or searching. Quite a while ago I found Dirt Perfect's channel which lead me to C&C Equipment, Captain Kleeman and NYA Millennial's channel. One of those mentioned Diesel Creek. Captain Kleeman mentioned your channel when he was talking about an attachment for his John Deere tractor and you had the video about Matt's off road recovery ..... whew word of mouth goes a long way and this is only just a few I mentioned. All awesome channels !!!
I love hearing stories about how people have found their way to the channel. So thanks so much for sharing with me Ed! Captain Kkeeman and a lot of those other folks have been really good to me.
There aught to be a Law about You having so much Fun . Well put together Video. Right up there with a few other You Tube farmers that I watch too. Thanks Much, Mike M
Enjoy running the tractor while you can!! Soon as in 2023 or 2024 you will be able to run both tractors from the office there on the farm and only go out to the tractor if the computer runs into something it can't figure out. I think John Deere will have a robot tractor and system ready for next year but I have not been able to nail that down for sure. By system, I mean that on newer used tractors the robot system may be able to be retro fitted. Farmers are going to need more land!!
There are some autonomous tractors already out there, but they aren't 100% refined yet. We've had the technology for a while now but just need to work out all the liability and safety concerns. It'll be interesting to see where we are in another 10 years! Thanks as always, Scott!
I think the Allis Chalmers D17 was one of the best all around tractors of it's time. There are still many out there still working after 6 decades. One of the biggest PITA my neighbor has, is the stir-rator in his new grain bin. You certainly can't fill the bin up more than 75% and expect them to work while drying 19% corn down to 15%.
This was an awesome video Neil!! We live in North central Indiana. They just spread chicken litter behind our house. Glad they didn’t do it right after harvest when we were still opening windows.
Very cool! I’m a little over a year in to my grass fed beef experiment, so I’m not very familiar with grain farming. So far I’ve learned composted manure and lime are some of the best things that can be done to my old neglected hay fields. Thanks for sharing this one!
I loved this video! I'm from Iowa so I've always been more conscious of farming than most even though my family wasn't directly involved. I totally get the relaxation of tilling. My current house is semi-rural and has a huge yard. I use a much smaller but still made-in-USA Deere to keep it under control. And it's just like you describe, except that I do have to steer, LOL.
That GPS system is a real help putting on the fertilizer! I had not put the two ideas together. I had been wondering how one could apply fertilizer at different rates on the same field. Clearly I am not a farmer but I did grow up around farms and farm people. Now I watch some farm channels.
I grew up in a small farm town in Montgomery county Indiana , so I am familiar with farming , but never really got involved with the crops that much , bailed my fair share of hay , but not much crop work , I really found this interesting, it explained things to me , thank you for all your time and work you do to share these videos with us
I think this video is wasted just being on You Tube. It should be showed in schools to educate . I'm 60 and learnt hell of a lot today, your narration is spot on.
Great video Neil. Very interesting and I learned a few things too lol. The 3155 was always one of my favorites too. Sorry to hear about the family farm getting split up and sold. That seemed to be a popular event that happened back in the 80s . Sad to say that the little 100 acres farms are a thing of the past. It is all big fields and big equipment. This was your most interesting video yet. Thanks
Love your videos from a fan in Alaska. I did spend some time on my family farm in Princeton, IN so watching these bring back some memories. Keep up the good work!
Hey Neal, I’d love to see some more in the weeds videos on the agronomy side of things. Maybe a crash course in crop science. Always love learning more.
I go into a little bit more detail on the video called "What I do at my day job" But I've been playing around with the idea of doing a little bit more in-depth video yet. Just wasn't sure how many people would be interested in. It is all. Thanks so much for the feedback. I really appreciate it
I also happen to work in an Improve and Optimize-type field except with composites and carbon materials for multi-use industries, everything from aerospace, rust prevention to graphene. This kind of stuff stimulates those areas of the brain that the more I learn about it, the more I can apply to other areas that could benefit in some way. I'm not one to dismiss the impact the average farmer has, but I've been thoroughly surprised at how much tech an average farmer has access to with your video, and that's Very cool to see. Our family has deep roots in dairy farming, though that unfortunately dried off and was sold for an expanding city quite some time ago, but I'm constantly tickling the idea to get back to it one day, turning manure and driving combines again. Makes you wonder if there's going to be room for humans to co-exist in the future before being displaced by an autonomous, mechanical or a robotic workforce.
Carolina work sounds very interesting! Yeah it is amazing how much tech is it fused into agriculture these days. When is JPS precision prescriptions in almost everything that we do. Lots of autonomy coming into the marketplace as well. But thanks so much for the interesting comment.
Great video Neil. Interesting all the different things you involved in. Kinda same here I help out with family farm and do many different things but not the technical aspects you do . Great to watch 👍✊
Yes I guess you could say I do! I never think of myself as being white collar at all since I grew up this way but I spend as much time... Check that, more time at the desk then I get to outside it seems anymore. 😂 Thanks for watching Chad!
Great video. Very interesting. I have relatives that farm approximately 3,000 acres near Shelbyville, Indiana and have always been curious about when fertilizer is applied and how. This video answered a lot of questions. Thanks!
I owned a Massey Ferguson 35 built 1964, and used it to haul wood from the forest or wherever I could get some trees to cut down for firewood. It's been some years ago that I stopped cutting down trees due to my health. I used Husqvarna and Sthil motor saws because they are the best IMO, John Deere is the best tractor IMO but I have never owned one so there I had the second best 😉. Yeah, the video was well worth watching!!!
Another great video! It's always interesting to me to see how the big farms work. I'm always amazed by the big machinery and how it works and thinking about how someone somewhere figured out out how to build it and make it work. Thanks Neil, very enjoyable! 😁👨🚒
Gotta admit my brother, you are one sharp cat and an excellent teacher. I saw those mega bales and my old, broken down ass started hurting. Not long ago, I was walking a field and loading an average of 200 bales for my animals. My yields were nothing compared to that. I learned quite a bit about you and what your vision for the future of agriculture is in this piece. Gotta say, I'm impressed. Enjoy your Thanksgiving with Kara, the girls and the rest of the 237,000 Koch family members. Love home and kiss the girls for me.
Thanks so much Greg! I don't think I knew you were into livestock and stuff so that is really cool. Have a great Thanksgiving and I'll be sure to pass along to the girls!
This was fascinating! Thanks for sharing! I can’t wait to share this with our farming friends and see how they apply the same thing with smaller equipment and smaller areas.
Wow, love this video.........fascinating area you're working with, AND very important. Earth seems to grow population almost past what we currently can yield to feed.
I have more appreciation for the new ways of agriculture every time I watch one of your "business" videos. Your videos continue to educate and inspire! Be well, be safe! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
So far so good. I'm still trying to work out a storage solution long-term archival of my footage. But the Mac is working today. I can't get around quiet it is.
