Food plot contract work

[nwmn]

A coworker heard from someone that I plant food plots at my place. He owns 160 acres which has half crp and half woods. He wanted to get his trails maintained and add some food plots. These food plots are already areas that are clearings in the woods and only thing in them are grasses, some sedge, and willows. He wants his trails planted into clover or something so he can walk and grouse hunt with his dog, and the food plot areas planted into whatever I choose. I'm going to plant the larger plots with a brassica mix with radish/turnips/rape. Then smaller plots in a clover mix.

Anywho, I have never done this before so I don't know what to charge? What's a fair rate? What would you guys be willing to pay? Obviously I will cost out the materials such as gly, seed, feet, gas, etc. I don't know what the going rate for services like this is. I know skidsteer mowing goes for $80/hr in the area. Today I spent 4.5 hours spraying everything. Added a nice tomato colored base too, will be in some pain from sunburn, so do I add that in for a cost :)

Appreciate the feedback!

 

[mikmaze]

keep it as simple as possible, come up with a charge to bring your equipment to his place, and then a per hour price for tractor with implements use, materials to be paid for by him.
doing it any other way would be hard for you, you know when you work you try to get done as much as possible, sometimes things happen, and it takes longer, not your fault. be careful spraying, on someone else s property for a fee? sounds like you should have an applicators license. skid steer mowing at 80 an hour sounds like a good gauge, but I doubt you would charge that much, closer to 50 an hr seems to be a number I would want to hit. for me I do not try to offer the service out as I am at a maximum of what I can handle for myself with the equipment that I have, if I had more tiem, bigger equipment, I would do more work on my place. 40 hp 2wd JD and I have about 20 to 25 acres of plots, the last 5 acres depend on how much wr goes in the cornfiled when the farmer gets it off.

 

[j-bird]

Just as a reference - I had some NWSG drilled a few years ago and all the guy did was run his tractor and drill......I did ALL the prep work and provided the seed. His standard rate was $100/hr - including travel to and from. I got a "QDMA" discount and he dropped it to $75.