Not going to make much money but you will be farming yourself and that's worth a lot in itself. Plus it opens up opportunities in the future, you've got to start small and take chances as they come. I've reclaimed 30+ acres that way. Make sure there aren't any low areas as old grass fields tend to hide places to get stuck. My best advice would be to see if you can custom hire someone with a baler, give them a quarter of the hay, and you do the mowing, raking and all else. That way it won't be overwhelming the first year if you have any breakdowns with the other equipment. Spray with Roundup 10 days before you fall plow/disk, co-op will custom do it for you if you don't have a sprayer, ought to be around $15/acre. If you can custom hire the co-op to then put down a little fertilizer they can broadcast the seed with it, then you cultipack it. Do all this early fall. Maybe have them spread 100 lbs acre fertilizer with 25 lbs of pasture mix seed ought to cost around $50/acre for the fertilizer and $100/acre for the seed but remember that you spread that cost over several years when figuring your budget as you obviously won't have to replant for several years. I'm not sure about the oats. Don't get carried away with the fertilizer, this isn't a high production high fertilization type of scenario, just a little to help get started and that way the co-op can spread/seed for you. By the time you figure your machinery, fuel, seed, fertilizer and baling cost you won't make a lot, but figure maybe 75 50 lb. bales per acre starting out and sell them for $3 to $4 depending on how good they are. You may make a lot more than 75 bales/acre but start out conservatively and that way you may be happily surprised but you can't figure on a bunch of profit. Make sure that the neighbor understands you are putting a multi-year investment in by seeding hay and that you need to farm it for a few years to get your money out of the seeding. Might get something in writing that you have the first right to farm it the next few years and under what terms, but that if you don't want to continue you can give him adequate notice so he can find another farmer. I highly recommend having an experienced farmer "bale" for you at first, as I stated you mow/rake/everything else. But if you choose to do that make sure you can trust him to get to you when the time is right and communicate with him.
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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