By Andrew Frankenfield
As field activities heat up, questions often arise on what to charge for custom services and equipment rental. There are a number of sources available for this information.
The Pennsylvania 2016 Machinery Custom Rates is the first place I go for a list rates for grain and forage harvesting, tillage, planting, drilling and spraying operations. Also miscellaneous activities include grain hauling and storage, manure spreading and handling, tractor rental and more.
The 2016 Iowa Farm Custom Rate Survey is another tool I use to get information for some of the activities not listed in the PA Custom Rate guide. This guide includes nearly all of the operations listed in the PA Custom Rate guide and has addition activities such as: vertical tillage, no-till planting with splitters, and extra charge for seed shut-offs. It also has more detailed harvesting operations such as: complete harvesting rates, grain cart rates and moving bales to storage rates. The miscellaneous services include nearly a one page list of activities such as: snow removal, scouting crops with a drone, livestock hauling and using a truck scale. Lastly in addition to tractor rental rates they list rates for some other equipment such as: no-till drill, corn or grain head, grain cart, bin wagon, manure spreader, generator and skid loader rental rates.
I always advise farmers that these rate schedules are intended only as a guide. Actual custom rates may vary according to availability of machinery in a given area, timeliness, operator skill, field size and shape, crop conditions, and the performance characteristics of the machine being used.
Source:psu.edu