What is everyone paying? I am meeting with a neighbor tomorrow to discuss renting his 15 acres of non irrigated ground. I was thinking 150-175 per acre was reasonable for the ground, but was curious what others are paying.

Contact the Oregon state extension or ag department and or the USDA FSA office to get an idea of what rates are in your region with that soil type. It is not helpful to me to give you our local rates. With current prices and milk prices your rates are a bit more than half of what our going rates are here.

Bryce

I can appreciate that -- some of the grass seeders in the area are paying 200 - 250 for that but access for large equipment is limited and it has been in nursery stock previously (ground deplete). my cousin was renting for 150, but he pays low notoriously. I want to be fair, but I raise sheep -- not a high dollar crop so ... This is also one of my irrigation customers and we are working on getting water to all of it.

Not sure around here it can go from 240 to 500 a acre for crop ground either corn beans or hay.

$160 to $200 an acre and that's with grapes already planted on them. Different rent depending where you live in this country

Are you in wino country also -- all the hillsides that can't grow anything else is in wine grapes here. A couple of our large grass seed (and other crop) farmers are paying up to 600 per acre for large tracts of good irrigated ground. Is it any wonder why there are no small farms anymore.

Do you get enough summer rains to make a crop?

Not sure how the farmer could make anything paying those rent prices. WOW!!!!

150$ here.

thats insane. 110 for river bottom here is max.

How many sheep are you putting on the 15 acres and for how long ?

Depends on the year -- I figure irrigated ground are 5/acre year round plus 150 days of feed. Front 3.5 acres looking at alfalfa and back 12 going to split into 2 pastures -- fall and spring only. I am small -- 115 bred ewes this year and 25 acres total of mixed ground so it would be a huge increase for me.

I miss raising sheep a lot. Folks made a living on sheep and cattle. I can't imagine that small of acreage for your herd but you may get a lot more moisture than here in the MT desert.

Yea -- about 50 inches a year. nothing in may, june, july, or august -- but the rest of the time we float. Heard it takes between 450 and 600 to make a modest living here. I am just looking to get to 250 or so to provide a suplimentle income for my lack of retirement planning.

What part of the state h2o?

And if you hear of a syndell or similar sheep handling setup for sale please let me know

You will need irrigation for alfalfa correct. That would change the value. You could possibly make more money off the alfalfa than the sheep if you put it all in alfalfa ?

Certainly a higher price for irrigated than not of course so that matters.

will do dryland alfalfa -- not the yield as irrigated but will certainly offset my hay bill, and the 1st cutting will go green chop to the local dairy - besides that way I don't have to fence that weird shaped piece.

western oregon -- willamette valley (s-hole part) of the state. If I can find a good sheep handling set-up I am going to buy it

Yes even though we didn't have alot of rain this summer was talking to a guy Saturday night said he was averGing 230 bushel per acre on corn. I have no idea if it was bottom ground or not.