Not sure how lucrative it's gonna be next year. I have 9 farmers that have been long term clients now for over 10 years. 8 of the 9 are going into the red this year. The other one may...and I do me MAY...break even. Low yields combined with low commodity prices (cotton and peanuts) combined for the perfect storm this year. The summer dry streak killed us in my area. I have a smaller guy that's coming up $300,000 short. Some of my bigger ones are in a lot rougher shape.
For all you hear about gov't subsidies and other crap like that let me assure you... it's not there for your everyday grower and not there for any cotton farmer. Best I can tell at this point I may loose at least 20% of my business...possibly more.
Been a good run the last 12 years though. You have to expect stuff like this every now an then and plan well in advance for it. Hope this one is short but it doesn't look like cotton is expected to rebound for a couple of years.
I use to get a lot of time off during hunting season. Than about 6-7 years ago precision soil sampling and fertilizer application (GPS) really exploded. It increased my soil sampling from pulling 700-800 samples a year to 5000+. Tack the added computer work of generating GPS spreader files for the fertilizer trucks and luxury time got scarce real quick...but it was worth the extra time