Duane Bozarth responds:

Charlie Self wrote:
...
I know zip about colored gas, but farmers still get a break on fuel for the
tractors in the form of gas that is not taxed for road use. Basically, they
pay
almost no taxes, which tends to knock at least 30 cents a gallon off. A few
farmers around here actually have fuel tanks on their farms, where they can
just run the tractor or other gear up to the tank. Diesel is available the
same
way.

Don't know where you are, but all operations here have bulk tanks on
farm...at 200+ gal/tankful for a modern tractor, to do otherwise is
certainly impractical.

Most farms around here are small, probably under 300 acres, often much smaller.
The land is too cut up by forest and hills for them to be otherwise. A large
cattle operation might have land scattered over miles, but there will be other
farms and houses in the spaces.

Tractors around here tend to hold about what a car or light truck would hold.
The midwest monsters are not useful: they'd never get around the obstacles
efficiently.

I'd guess most of the more up-to-date operations use diesel.

Farming here consists of truck farms, small cattle operations, and dairy farms.
Obviously, some grains are grown, but most of it is corn for silage.

What you describe would make most Virginia farmers quit and for a factory job.
In fact, that's how many of them survived. Day job in a factory--or, in the
case of those like my father-in-law, the mines (just thinking about that
working environment gives me nightmares)--the rest of their time on the farm.
FIL did his mining long enough to pay for the acres he wanted, then went to
farming full time on less than 200 very hilly acres in western Virginia. His
place is in the mountains, so those articulated tractors would spend more time
tumbling down the hills than they would doing useful work.

Different strokes for different areas.


Charlie Self
"It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable." Eric
Hoffer