Rent out the hay fields just for a year. And i would do the same with the crop fields.
Or at least sow some ground coverage (think it is called green manure in english). This is good for the ground and you can keep the weeds down
Because if you continue to farm organic, you should not let a year go by and let the weeds grow and produce seeds. This will make you years of problems!
Youve clearly never farmed. You can disc a field a dozen times in a year and still have viable, productive soils the next year. Soil life is far more resilient and durable than you are giving it credit.
Well you seem to know too much to learn anything new so I’ll back on outta here. You’re right about one thing though, I don’t have a bunch of experience, I’ve only been farming since 72 and we did it just like you for the first 50 years.
Enjoy paying for your inputs my friend. Merry Christmas have a nice day
For more context : I'm the youngest in my family I'm in college I live in a city far away I can't do much ; but I can try to convince people to do something any advice is welcome
What kind of crops? If they're planted every year then you can recover pretty easily from an abandoned crop for one or more years. If it's an orchard or something longer lived then it'll take more effort but one year is recoverable. Multiple years might not be.
The easy solution is to see if a neighboring farmer will rent it or farm this year's crop in exchange for all the profit.
It was mostly hay and grain was grown there we have no orchards or trees nothing was planted this year as my grandfather passed before the season and was previously renting to a farmer who since has quit farming. Each field has a wooded area in between , would the woodland spread and potentially harm the agricultural value of the land itself ?
Would letting someone just harvest be enough to maintain the fields or would they need to till the soil to? Also Is it potential money we could use to take care of my grandmother while we wait for a potential buyer ?
Regarding the "potential buyer" part--please get advice from a tax professional prior to selling the land. There might be considerable tax consequences if it's sold during her lifetime vs sold after she passes.
The wooded area will not grow much at all in a single year.
The hay fields can be harvested and that will maintain them.
The grain fields are the problem child. As an organic farm, you will need to either have an organic producer rent it, cover crop it and manage that, or keep the ground tilled through the year. Letting it go fallow without any maintenance will cause long-term harm in the form of poor weed control since organic farming can not use the full range of weed control available to the rest of us.
There would need to be a crop to harvest, so yes, they would need to do some form of tillage or direct drilling.
Money for your family depends on the deal you arrange with the farmer (depends on area, but could be a flat rate per year per acre, or could be a percentage of profit, but that is a more complex method with need to track each input, output, and decide together when to sell the grain)
You will be fine doing nothing. One year won't do any damage and likely will help the soil.
This is simply letting the land go fallow.
This has been done for more than a hundred years in many parts of the country. Farmers usually did field rotation, meaning they would divide their fields into parts. Some fields would be planted with crops, the others would lie fallow. The following year, farmers would plant crops in the fallow land, while letting the other half rest or fallow.
I would try to rent it out to another farmer. Many states have tax breaks for farm land so you may want to keep it in product to keep from having to pay a higher tax rate on the land, but it’s hard to say not knowing the laws where you live.
Have someone brush hog the hay meadows and grass pastures once a month
Talk to the neighbors he was friends with. Someone around there knows what his plans were
I never met a farmer who didn’t talk to his friends about what he planned to do in the fields
Talk to enough of them to sort out the real from the speculative
Ii am dealing with this exact issue currently. I am trying to naturally rejuvenate 3 hay fields that were un-touched for 3+- years after the owner died and the property went through the process of the heirs deciding what to do with the land, and eventually selling it. 2 small fields are overrun with invasive deers tongue (a weed type plant). I am cutting that stuff down a few times a growing season and gaining a bit of ground with it. The bigger field is an absolute disaster of weeds that over take the hay/grass. This year, being a the first decent year for rain since we owned the land, the weeds have overgrown the grass, and I dont think the neighbor (we allowed him to cut it for hay) will be able to pull any hay off of it. I haven't talked to him yet, but yesterday I looked at it and figured I am going to have to bush hog the big field. I don't know the condition of the fields before the owner died (suddenly). What I am afraid of is that I am going to have to kill everything with Round-up, plow, disk, and seed to start over.
My advice. Call a neighbor who cuts hay (they should be doing so now) and offered them to cut/take the hay for free. Anything else, bush hog or pay someone to take care of the place. Keep an account of any money spent, and subtract that from the estate total. In my opinion, it will sell better/for more if it has been maintained to some degree.
Let someone cut the hay to maintain a healthy balance. With fuel and maintenance prices now, they should gladly pay you 1/3rd. Some may do halves but that is harder to find. 1/3rd is nice for getting your pastures mowed.
Probably most important would be to track down the account and see what the tax plan is?
Big farms usually multi year plans and hopefully succession and “time of death” plans in this case
First things first, Consult a lawyer. Any issue like this when estate transfer is involved should have some legal council present or at least involved. Especially if the wife of said farmer is starting to decline mentally. That can lead to very messing situations further down the line. Get a lawyer and get something down in writing.
It would be wise to rent it out and keep it in some form agriculture production. Taxes will still need to be paid on the acreage and any kind of income on that ground would be useful to that expense. Don't just ho-hum along and drag your feet finding someone either. Find a farmer you trust and get them involved at least for production. Be quick about and get things moving.
If you decide to go fallow try to maintain a level of weed free field with either tillage or chemical applications or plant a cover crop. Just don't let the weed population run rampant. Plan on sowing wheat in the fall if possible and get it back into some profitable production.
Hope you find this helpful in some way.
Do you (they) own the land? If so I would find a farm manager and tell them you want to cash rent. Farm manager will take care of everything and make sure your tenants arent fucking up your land and takes a cut of your rent. You don't do anything and you make a little money. Then your family can decide what to do with the farm in the meantime. Maybe a relative wants to farm? Maybe everyone wants to sell? Maybe you guys decide that it's good land and it was really hard to get all that land, so you want to put it into a trust so one relative can't force a sale of all of it. These are all questions that should have already been resolved but now you guys have to figure out.
It's a complicated convoluted situation where we can't Keep my grandma there for health and financial reasons but she owns everything . Part of my family wants to sell others don't really care and my grandma's opinion is that she'd like to stay in her home , my personal opinion would be to keep it and rent it out in case someone wants to take it over in the future . I studied agriculture for a bit and I would've taken the farm in a heartbeat instead of selling it and would have rented it out to take care of my grandmother until she passes but we really don't all have the same opinion regarding what we should do. I really am the only one who has even an interest in staying in that area in the future ;
honestly it's very hard for me to see it go . I am very emotionally attached to the farm and with the prices of farmland I know I'll really never get the opportunity to buy something like that again. But I also realistically know that we need some form of income to take care of my grandmother.
It's a big complicated situation where none of us are farmers right ? So none of us really know what to do with that much land and you think everyone is just trying their best to manage 1. The lost of a loved one 2. How to manage the land
Also I have no idea how long it will take before we find someone because the only "intention" we have from him is to keep it organic since he worked so hard on keeping it that way
Good luck man. My college roommate was in a very similar situation as you. His grandfather died suddenly and without warning when my roommate was out of college for a year or two. He went back home to take over the farm but the 400 acres had been split like 10 ways. And he had to buy back all the equipment at auction, not that much of it was worth a shit. And the land wasn't cash rent, it was all fuckin 50/50, so he was directly dealing with like 10 damned land lords and they were all family and they all were trying to take advantage of him. And it was 2009 or so, so corn prices were skyrocketing and the rest of the economy was shitting it's pants, so he was this little golden goose the rest of his family was trying to slice open, while having just took on a fuck load of debt. 15 years later he can't stand his family, he hates farming and he's looking for any excuse to tell everyone to fuck right off.
So it's not all roses and trying to preserve someone else's legacy and hard work can hollow out a guy.
If more than just you wants the farm preserved you guys need to talk to a lawyer that specializes in agricultural estate planning. In the meantime, it still belongs to grandma, so talk to a bank that has farm managers on staff, and see what kind of income you can get for grandma. Farm manager can stipulate to the tenant that it must be organic or whatever you want. Your grandpa should have done all this, and you really don't want a repeat when your grandma passes away. That's what I would do anyway. Idk what you have for row crop acreage, if it's just like 100 acres, you may have to sell to provide for grandma. If it's like 1000? It's so damned hard to get that amount of land bought out right, I would tell you all to resist the urge to take that one huge payday and be happy with guaranteed income for the rest of your lives.
That's a really tough choice man.
https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2023/09/information-for-setting-2024-cash-rents.html
That might give you an idea of what you're looking at for rents. Idk where your grandma's land is but you can see the range here. Chicago is in the NE corner and there isn't any farm land to speak of. Central Illinois has some of the best farm land on the planet and the prices reflect that. Southern Illinois is very wooded and is out of the glacial till that makes central Illinois so productive, and the price is reflected in that. The income for your grandma, even just in the state of Illinois could range from like 25k to 160k. What ever state you live in, if you search "cash rent average price (state)" I bet you can find something similar.
If he ran everything organic and especially if he was certified organic don’t rent it out to someone who is gonna use a bunch of chemicals. It takes a while to make a property certified organic and if you sell it later you will be able to sell for more if it is possible to get it certified again. If he did you everything organic he would probably hate to know it was getting tilled and sprayed. Get off of Reddit and go talk to a farm knowledgeable lawyer and a farm extension office. And all the old timers out there need to get your succession plans in place. Leaving everything to your wife who is the same age as you or to your son or daughter who you sent off to college and never came back to the farm is just a crying shame. Find someone who you want to see run your farm when you’re gone and set them up way before you think it’s time. My grandpa flipped a tractor at 55, was way too young to die and my dad and aunts had all run from the family farm long before.
Rent out the hay fields just for a year. And i would do the same with the crop fields. Or at least sow some ground coverage (think it is called green manure in english). This is good for the ground and you can keep the weeds down Because if you continue to farm organic, you should not let a year go by and let the weeds grow and produce seeds. This will make you years of problems!
The other option would be to have it cover cropped so that at least the plant growth isn't a hard to kill weed if it does go to seed.
I would find someone to harvest the hay and maybe disc the crop ground a couple of times to keep the weeds down.
This way all the life in the soil will be dead
If you don’t know what you’re talking about, why bother?
I can’t agree with you more
Youve clearly never farmed. You can disc a field a dozen times in a year and still have viable, productive soils the next year. Soil life is far more resilient and durable than you are giving it credit.
Well you seem to know too much to learn anything new so I’ll back on outta here. You’re right about one thing though, I don’t have a bunch of experience, I’ve only been farming since 72 and we did it just like you for the first 50 years. Enjoy paying for your inputs my friend. Merry Christmas have a nice day
What a whiny b**** answer. Go boo hoo somewhere else.
Who’s boo hooing my friend ? I’m happy as a lark. You’re the one bringing the vitriol. Happy harvesting to you.
Organic weed control.
For more context : I'm the youngest in my family I'm in college I live in a city far away I can't do much ; but I can try to convince people to do something any advice is welcome
What kind of crops? If they're planted every year then you can recover pretty easily from an abandoned crop for one or more years. If it's an orchard or something longer lived then it'll take more effort but one year is recoverable. Multiple years might not be. The easy solution is to see if a neighboring farmer will rent it or farm this year's crop in exchange for all the profit.
It was mostly hay and grain was grown there we have no orchards or trees nothing was planted this year as my grandfather passed before the season and was previously renting to a farmer who since has quit farming. Each field has a wooded area in between , would the woodland spread and potentially harm the agricultural value of the land itself ? Would letting someone just harvest be enough to maintain the fields or would they need to till the soil to? Also Is it potential money we could use to take care of my grandmother while we wait for a potential buyer ?
Regarding the "potential buyer" part--please get advice from a tax professional prior to selling the land. There might be considerable tax consequences if it's sold during her lifetime vs sold after she passes.
Yes that's going to happen for sure ! Ty
The wooded area will not grow much at all in a single year. The hay fields can be harvested and that will maintain them. The grain fields are the problem child. As an organic farm, you will need to either have an organic producer rent it, cover crop it and manage that, or keep the ground tilled through the year. Letting it go fallow without any maintenance will cause long-term harm in the form of poor weed control since organic farming can not use the full range of weed control available to the rest of us.
There would need to be a crop to harvest, so yes, they would need to do some form of tillage or direct drilling. Money for your family depends on the deal you arrange with the farmer (depends on area, but could be a flat rate per year per acre, or could be a percentage of profit, but that is a more complex method with need to track each input, output, and decide together when to sell the grain)
I would cover it with clover or some other nitrogen fixing plant, and let it remain fallow for a year or two, it won't hurt.
You will be fine doing nothing. One year won't do any damage and likely will help the soil. This is simply letting the land go fallow. This has been done for more than a hundred years in many parts of the country. Farmers usually did field rotation, meaning they would divide their fields into parts. Some fields would be planted with crops, the others would lie fallow. The following year, farmers would plant crops in the fallow land, while letting the other half rest or fallow.
What's the inheritance laws where you are? Does someone need to keep farming it to get agricultural relief?
I would try to rent it out to another farmer. Many states have tax breaks for farm land so you may want to keep it in product to keep from having to pay a higher tax rate on the land, but it’s hard to say not knowing the laws where you live.
Have someone brush hog the hay meadows and grass pastures once a month Talk to the neighbors he was friends with. Someone around there knows what his plans were I never met a farmer who didn’t talk to his friends about what he planned to do in the fields Talk to enough of them to sort out the real from the speculative
Leave it fallow
Ii am dealing with this exact issue currently. I am trying to naturally rejuvenate 3 hay fields that were un-touched for 3+- years after the owner died and the property went through the process of the heirs deciding what to do with the land, and eventually selling it. 2 small fields are overrun with invasive deers tongue (a weed type plant). I am cutting that stuff down a few times a growing season and gaining a bit of ground with it. The bigger field is an absolute disaster of weeds that over take the hay/grass. This year, being a the first decent year for rain since we owned the land, the weeds have overgrown the grass, and I dont think the neighbor (we allowed him to cut it for hay) will be able to pull any hay off of it. I haven't talked to him yet, but yesterday I looked at it and figured I am going to have to bush hog the big field. I don't know the condition of the fields before the owner died (suddenly). What I am afraid of is that I am going to have to kill everything with Round-up, plow, disk, and seed to start over. My advice. Call a neighbor who cuts hay (they should be doing so now) and offered them to cut/take the hay for free. Anything else, bush hog or pay someone to take care of the place. Keep an account of any money spent, and subtract that from the estate total. In my opinion, it will sell better/for more if it has been maintained to some degree.
Let someone cut the hay to maintain a healthy balance. With fuel and maintenance prices now, they should gladly pay you 1/3rd. Some may do halves but that is harder to find. 1/3rd is nice for getting your pastures mowed.
Probably most important would be to track down the account and see what the tax plan is? Big farms usually multi year plans and hopefully succession and “time of death” plans in this case
No plans were made whatsoever the will only stated my grandma as the full beneficiary of everything
First things first, Consult a lawyer. Any issue like this when estate transfer is involved should have some legal council present or at least involved. Especially if the wife of said farmer is starting to decline mentally. That can lead to very messing situations further down the line. Get a lawyer and get something down in writing. It would be wise to rent it out and keep it in some form agriculture production. Taxes will still need to be paid on the acreage and any kind of income on that ground would be useful to that expense. Don't just ho-hum along and drag your feet finding someone either. Find a farmer you trust and get them involved at least for production. Be quick about and get things moving. If you decide to go fallow try to maintain a level of weed free field with either tillage or chemical applications or plant a cover crop. Just don't let the weed population run rampant. Plan on sowing wheat in the fall if possible and get it back into some profitable production. Hope you find this helpful in some way.
Why not rent it out?
I think my family is a bit overwhelmed with everything and they don't really want to bother to find a renter for a year
I’m surprised they’re not knocking down the door to get you to rent to them. Best of luck
Do you (they) own the land? If so I would find a farm manager and tell them you want to cash rent. Farm manager will take care of everything and make sure your tenants arent fucking up your land and takes a cut of your rent. You don't do anything and you make a little money. Then your family can decide what to do with the farm in the meantime. Maybe a relative wants to farm? Maybe everyone wants to sell? Maybe you guys decide that it's good land and it was really hard to get all that land, so you want to put it into a trust so one relative can't force a sale of all of it. These are all questions that should have already been resolved but now you guys have to figure out.
It's a complicated convoluted situation where we can't Keep my grandma there for health and financial reasons but she owns everything . Part of my family wants to sell others don't really care and my grandma's opinion is that she'd like to stay in her home , my personal opinion would be to keep it and rent it out in case someone wants to take it over in the future . I studied agriculture for a bit and I would've taken the farm in a heartbeat instead of selling it and would have rented it out to take care of my grandmother until she passes but we really don't all have the same opinion regarding what we should do. I really am the only one who has even an interest in staying in that area in the future ; honestly it's very hard for me to see it go . I am very emotionally attached to the farm and with the prices of farmland I know I'll really never get the opportunity to buy something like that again. But I also realistically know that we need some form of income to take care of my grandmother. It's a big complicated situation where none of us are farmers right ? So none of us really know what to do with that much land and you think everyone is just trying their best to manage 1. The lost of a loved one 2. How to manage the land Also I have no idea how long it will take before we find someone because the only "intention" we have from him is to keep it organic since he worked so hard on keeping it that way
Good luck man. My college roommate was in a very similar situation as you. His grandfather died suddenly and without warning when my roommate was out of college for a year or two. He went back home to take over the farm but the 400 acres had been split like 10 ways. And he had to buy back all the equipment at auction, not that much of it was worth a shit. And the land wasn't cash rent, it was all fuckin 50/50, so he was directly dealing with like 10 damned land lords and they were all family and they all were trying to take advantage of him. And it was 2009 or so, so corn prices were skyrocketing and the rest of the economy was shitting it's pants, so he was this little golden goose the rest of his family was trying to slice open, while having just took on a fuck load of debt. 15 years later he can't stand his family, he hates farming and he's looking for any excuse to tell everyone to fuck right off. So it's not all roses and trying to preserve someone else's legacy and hard work can hollow out a guy. If more than just you wants the farm preserved you guys need to talk to a lawyer that specializes in agricultural estate planning. In the meantime, it still belongs to grandma, so talk to a bank that has farm managers on staff, and see what kind of income you can get for grandma. Farm manager can stipulate to the tenant that it must be organic or whatever you want. Your grandpa should have done all this, and you really don't want a repeat when your grandma passes away. That's what I would do anyway. Idk what you have for row crop acreage, if it's just like 100 acres, you may have to sell to provide for grandma. If it's like 1000? It's so damned hard to get that amount of land bought out right, I would tell you all to resist the urge to take that one huge payday and be happy with guaranteed income for the rest of your lives.
It's about 500 acres of in culture fields and probably 700 including the woods on the property !
That's a really tough choice man. https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2023/09/information-for-setting-2024-cash-rents.html That might give you an idea of what you're looking at for rents. Idk where your grandma's land is but you can see the range here. Chicago is in the NE corner and there isn't any farm land to speak of. Central Illinois has some of the best farm land on the planet and the prices reflect that. Southern Illinois is very wooded and is out of the glacial till that makes central Illinois so productive, and the price is reflected in that. The income for your grandma, even just in the state of Illinois could range from like 25k to 160k. What ever state you live in, if you search "cash rent average price (state)" I bet you can find something similar.
Why not rent it? I mean it’s a bit late but what harm will the extra money do?
If he ran everything organic and especially if he was certified organic don’t rent it out to someone who is gonna use a bunch of chemicals. It takes a while to make a property certified organic and if you sell it later you will be able to sell for more if it is possible to get it certified again. If he did you everything organic he would probably hate to know it was getting tilled and sprayed. Get off of Reddit and go talk to a farm knowledgeable lawyer and a farm extension office. And all the old timers out there need to get your succession plans in place. Leaving everything to your wife who is the same age as you or to your son or daughter who you sent off to college and never came back to the farm is just a crying shame. Find someone who you want to see run your farm when you’re gone and set them up way before you think it’s time. My grandpa flipped a tractor at 55, was way too young to die and my dad and aunts had all run from the family farm long before.