Post by benmnwi on Aug 6, 2024 13:46:37 GMT -6
I'll be lucky to get my rent check for my WI place this year. The farmer renting my wisconsin tillable land finally planted his alfalfa clover mix last weekend. Or at least he said he planted half the field, but I'm still not going to believe it until I see it. This guy is on multiple state boards including some ag related and seems to be a decent guy, but he is the worst farmer I've ever seen. He can't seem to figure out how to get things done, but he always has a long list of excuses. I turned down higher offers per acre to go with guy since he sounded and looked on paper like a good farmer. But he sucks.
Last year was his first year renting my place and he planted his alfalfa in early September, so I had no food on my place and the hunting sucked. Then the alfalfa died over winter and this year he couldn't get around to planting it until last weekend. Maybe he'll make a bale of hay out there on his third growing season renting it.
I had a farm client who was the head man for one of the farm organizations in our state. His place was a complete dump, yet he said how bad farming was when talking to the media.
He had a lame cow and when I finally caught her, she was in a pen with a board and nails sticking up through the manure. I almost stepped on it and pointed it out to the farmers sons. Months later, I had a lame cow in the pen. The board with nails was still there. I lost all respect for that farm organization.
I'm clearly not very good at picking good farmers in Wisconsin. I did a quick internet search and thought he must know what he was talking about when I saw he was in leadership positions on a farm organization and also one other county board. I saw a picture of him speaking in front of the legislature in Wisconsin, so I assumed he must be decent. Nope, that wasn't the case - he just can't get anything done. I was completely clear with him when I selected him - I'm not looking for the highest rent possible, but I want good food on my place for the wildlife and up there alfalfa seems to be a huge draw. He didn't get it planted last spring like every other farmer since he said it was too wet early then too dry later, so it was tall weeds all summer until he dug it up and finally planted a week before bow opener. It sprouted really late and was a couple inches tall when it quit growing, so there was never really any food last year. I had some hope though that this year would be good, but I was wrong. The alfalfa looked like crap this year after the snow melted, then whatever was growing was eaten by bugs of some sort a month later. This was late May this year that it died out. I talked to him and reminded him I need it planted soon so we have something for the deer to eat, but almost every week there was a new excuse. At the end of the day, he just couldn't get anything done. Too wet, too dry, disk broke, hydraulic leak, had to borrow a tractor, etc. I guess I'll see what it looks like the next time I come up there, but somehow it will likely be screwed up.
I even quit my 2 acres of food plots up there because it seemed dumb for me to plant plots when a professional was planting the other 35 acres of cropland and he will do a much better job. That was stupid.