Kansas wheat harvest

These per bushel rates are based less than the custom cutters are getting for the trucking part. Custom cut wheat rates are based on 3 numbers and average going rate is 24's or about that. 24.00 acre to cut, .24 a bushel reasonable haul, and .24 a bushel average over 20 bu. yield. Most hauls will be anywhere from can see the destination to 20 miles so it should average out a good job. Many miles more than that a higher hauling rate is agreed too. If you look at just the trucking, it will seem a good rate. But it has to be worked into the per acre outcome or the combine is not getting enough.

Often guys will approach custom cutters to come with there truck and haul from them. They don't realize custom cutters are equipped to haul because they have to be able to get moved, and also they need the trucking end of it to come out. Hauling equipment and running trucks is a royal pain and if it could be contracted out many would do it but the bottom line doesn't allow it. Average net to custom cutters is only 2-3.00 an acre in a good year, the risk and overhead to maybe clear this is tremendous.

I'm not very smart, and know nothing about the wheat harvest, but the way she explained it I think it would work.

.24 per bu should fetch about 200 per load.

4 loads a day = 800

40 miles a round x 4 equals 160 miles. 800 dollars divided by 160 miles come out to 5.00 per mile.

5 miles per gal = 32 gal x 2.40 equals $76.80.

No washout.

Maybe you can only get 3 loads, I don't know, but what about her post seemed insulting? I just thought she was letting the ones out here (me) that don't know what the deal is, what the deal is. Right wrong or indifferent, she explained at least their thought process.

Thanks Susan.

Are those field rates Jason or from the bin?

I have always gotten paid by the hour for those, otherwise they can do it themselves. Usually ends up being $1000.00 per day for my truck.

That is why I had Jason clarify that it was field work. You will not be getting multiple trips in a day Arnie, you will be sitting in line with 20 other trucks getting around $35.00 per hour thinking they are making good money. The broker that called Jason was offering him a sucker load and most likely the broker does not know crap about how working harvest works. I have worked harvest many times in the past as a kid and with my trucks, we get paid by the hour from the time the truck arrives until sunset. Often times the farmers pay us the bushel price to run it from the bin to the market for them. You will not get many loads in while waiting on the cutter to cut, then load it in your hopper one tub at a time, then run it back to the farmers bin, dump it and then get back in line again. Trust me when I say this you do not want to send out your nice truck and trailer to work the field, you want to work the market runs. Take a look around you this upcoming harvest season and look at the difference between the trucks working the field and the ones that work the market side. Now if I was running a 1975 cabover with a 1998 hopper behind it, and I did not have to worry about DOT, then making $35.00 per hour with that equipment may seem like good money, but my equipment needs to be road worthy, and the insurance that I am required to have does not justify putting our equipment in the field. Always put your crappiest trucks in the field and keep the good ones for the road. Wheat harvest is not as bad as corn, but the field in the end is the field.

Would you want to take a Ferrari to go 4 wheeling with?
Wouold you want to take a 4 x 4 on a road track against a Ferrari?

If I still had my old 1976 Ford L9000 then I would put that truck to work in the field.

Here's the deal farm trucks belong on the farms and in the fields. OTR trucks belong on the road hauling the products to markets. There are farmers that have both, and they don't run their farm trucks OTR or visa versa.

If working by the hour it can range from $60.00 to $100.00 depending. When we did frac send it was $95.00 to $125.00 per hour. If hauling for $60.00 per hour we also get .05-.10 per bushel. It all depends on how you and your customer want to work it. I personally tru and stay out of the fields and usually work the market runs by the bushels. There are occasions though when the customer needs the truck at the field and that is where we go, but they load us on the road.

Hope that helps.

It seems your harvest and what we do here is different. I help a good friend at harvest time (beans and corn) and it is nothing like you describe. They run 3 combines with 42 foot heads(2, 8 row corn heads). We are hauling to the bins which is typically under 10 miles. We run 4 trailers, 4 straight trucks and 2 1000 bu grain carts. We have a kid at the bins unloading and we just haul.

Here is the monster difference, I do this because we are good friends. Last time after we were finished, he handed me a signed check and said take care of yourself. I filled it out and handed it to him for his ok and he tore it up and wrote another one adding a goodly amount. Seems we both understood the value of good service.

I wish more of the work could be like this. In the appraisal business, I will have somebody order something kind of off the wall and I will tell them that if they will just let me do it, I will be fair, but if I have to bid it, it will not seem fair to them. I almost always have to bid, because of the wisdom of our goverment, and their 'good faith disclouser', everybody has to know what something will cost. This most likely brought to us by the same people that have ruined the trucking business.

People with no "honer or integrity".

Hey, all I tried to do was explain how custom wheat harvest rates worked. The post was "Kansas wheat harvest" so I and I'm sure many others thought it was about harvest, not typical whining over the rate offered. And if that rate had been say from satellite elevator to main elevator someplace with priority turn around and minutes to load and unload it's a good rate. Although not totally clear I assumed it was from the field as was later clarified. Having just started the 32nd Kansas wheat harvest in a Texas to Saskatchewan run under another entity name I know a little how it works. Since this wasn't about wheat harvest I took the opportunity to explain why custom cutters don't often hire on trucks to haul from them. Odds are this was a farmer trying to cut his own and not equipped to keep it away from him, but if he was equipped to turn the truck around right away and dumped right away it wasn't a bad rate.

Right now I can remember at least 4 guys calling this spring wanting to bring their truck and haul from us. Really the only time we will load outside trucks is if we have an unusual long haul in Saskatchewan and B trains will come in, and also a couple times in SD. When this happens we've got two 1100 bu. carts ready and get them turned right around with priority over our trucks. As explained previously this would be considered an abnormal long haul and the farmer covers the outside trucks, along with an agreed upon higher rate for us.

And as I tried to explain, the custom guy needs the hauling and the overage. The combine alone isn't getting near enough to cash flow without the trucking, especially like here in 50 bu. 63 lb. test wt. wheat. In poor wheat the combine dollar rate has to be higher or there is an agreed upon higher flat rate per acre.

Someone mentioned the junk trucks hauling out of the field too. It's the local guys hauling with junk and overweight wrecking the roads and I've told DOT officers that more than once. We run legal and the cart weights are on the spreadsheets with the scale ticket weights so we know if they need recalibrating before dumping in bins and know we're legal.

I think what she is saying is they bid the whole gig and it is broke down into sectors of the bid. Much like building a house. Each sector is allocated a percentage of the budget. I thought she did a good job explaining it from a cutters point if of view. Most cutters don't run around with junk equipment either, their risk is far greater than a truckers. It ends up as a risk reward situation. They need the part of the whole to make it work, so if a local truck will haul at the same part then it works for all. In her example she was not shortchanging the truck. Our example is indeed for individuals that are cutting rhemselves. Two different bidding processes.

Good points Alfredo and susan.

Arnie are rates really that bad? Not saying that you don't pay your driver but when I started driving back in 1992 I was making $1,000 a week as a driver I have I must have been an independent for too many years I get out of whack with the prices that drivers get paid I was unaware that driver still make that little bit of money that's a shame sorry for your driver and for you. Something really needs to be done

And how many miles where you driving for that grand a week?

1992 .27 hub

Jason,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, what is it you want here? You say you don't want an argument but then prod me indicating that I don't pay my driver. Maybe I figured something wrong, but I thought I was paying him 25%, thinking that was kind of the standard of the industury. Please let me know if I am behind times.

The week I posted about my driver traveled 2921 miles door to door. Came out to 1.78 per mile, all miles that week.

We live in north central Missouri (125 to St Joe, 140 to KC, 150 to St Louis...), not really the hub of the bulk world, so we have some deadhead miles in there every week. The deadhead can't be helped if he wants to get home. It is all up to my driver, I never say a word about the deadhead miles for him to get home. That said, all the miles have to be counted and as bad as they might seem to you, that is what my truck did.

I'll give you my drivers number, he is a good guy, but I don't want to hold him back from working for you and making twice as much as he is now.
BTW, he likes to use the debit card to eat a good meal, he likes to have his yard mowed every 3-5 days and his kids like the new DQ in Macon. Just let me know if you want that number.

Just a few more regs in the appraisal / banking world and I will be glad to get back in a truck!

Arnie, in no way shape or form was I stating anything to do with the way you treat or pay your drivers. I think it is awesome that you employ people. I was just stating that evidently driver pay sucks today compared to when I was driving a truck for someone. Yes I am very fortunate my backyard is considered a hopper capital of the world as far as pay and awesome lanes to run. As far as bill is concerned as soon as the ICG gets underway you damn right I'm going to be posting my loads I have some very awesome contracts and they're getting better and better. Don't be fooled by what these Brokers tell you what freight still pays very well if you know how to get it. I just booked my 6th load of the Year from a broker. Yes it sucks but I had to do it as a gap fill. If I had to depend on Brokers to get all my Freight I would have quit a long time ago they are too greedy and try to tell you that freight is not paying very well and they seem to stick together by doing this so a trucker seems to think that is the truth when actually they're being lied to so the Brokers can make more and more money it is a shame but it is the reality that they want you to be in. I do not like to talk about Freight rates on this form because there are too many men on here that are in such a bubble that they think that they know better when I really don't know what Freight pays that's what the ICG is for. I apologize Arnie if I ruffled your feathers I talk through my phone sometimes the text is not interpreted correctly that's why phone calls or in-person conversations are much better

David, I was just reading this to Jason as he was getting loaded. He agrees that he is out of touch with what a company driver is making today. I told him that when I came out and got recertified in 2008 that Swift started me at the same .27 per mile as he made in 1992. Hell my dad made .17 per mile in 1980. Arnie is paying right in line to his guy, plus he lets his guy basically call the shots for the equipment. Jason was just asking because he wants to make sure he takes that into consideration when bidding jobs. He does not want to short change anybody, it looks to me that he most likely will not be guilty of that.

Let us all remember that we all have different approaches to how we run our business. In the end we need to start working towards a common goal of improving our industry for the good of all involved. It is easy for us to get distracted and frustrated when the media, the gooberment, and the Mega's continue to feed us the propaganda that they want us all to believe. There is no way in hell that rates should or could be the same or less then they were in 1996, 1986, or 1978. It is only by degradation of our education, the constant greed by Corporate America (and now the world), that these types of things happen.

What happened to the day when everybody made money together in trucking?

What happened to the day that the broker was a good guy instead of being despised?

What happened was the shipper pushed for deregulation, more carriers became brokers, shippers became 3PL's, new truckers were sold that it only cost .92 per mile to run their truck, more and more subsidy programs came out (to include the $15,000 per driver program for the Mega's). Did you know there was such a thing for the Mega's to train those from the welfare roles? Give somebody a CDL, and that CDL looses its value. Give somebody a college education for free and that diploma looses its value. Lower the standards for US Army Ranger School, and the US Army Infantry, and that looses its value. Do you see a common theme occurring? Anything our gooberment gives away for free, or has to lower the standards to achieve their goals, ends up lowering the values of such things. Now you can understand why your dollar does not go as far as it used to.

On one hand we have constant laws and regulations being put into place to make not a level playing field (as the Mega's proclaim) but to try and force us to be a glorified lease operator with them. Then we turn around and have exceptions to those same regulations given to the very same Mega's. Must be nice to not have to abide by the same rules as others.

We Independent Carriers need to quit attacking each other and become more focused on who our true enemy is. Once we all can set aside our trucker pride and work together (which I doubt will ever happen) we can then make a difference.

At least someone saw the big picture.

Josh, Marcy just said that if you want to come down for a couple days and Go Fishin and while we are out she will get one of the neighbor kids to come over and draw your picture I'm not real good at it

I'm game for that!