Farm Fuel Calculator · Worked example
Two changes. Two very different fuel costs.
Compare one fewer tillage pass with two more points of corn moisture in a 100-acre teaching case.
Illustrated walkthrough · example data. These are teaching panels, not a recording of the application. Hypothetical 100-acre corn case. Fuel prices are teaching inputs, not current quotes. Operation fuel rates follow the calculator’s editable presets; they are not measurements of this farm.
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Every step, in words
Demonstration transcript
Silent, captioned demonstration. No audio track. Read at your own pace or use the player’s step controls.
- 0:00–0:12
Set the baseline
Use 100 corn acres, 200 bu/acre, diesel at $3.50 and propane at $1.80. Hauling and irrigation are off.
$48.88 / acre
- 0:12–0:24
Remove one gallon of diesel
Switch from chisel plus field cultivator to one vertical-tillage pass. Keep planting and every other operation unchanged.
$45.38 / acre
- 0:24–0:36
Keep drying visible
At 200 bu/acre, removing five moisture points uses 18 gallons of propane per acre at the example dryer rate.
200 × 5 × 0.018
- 0:36–0:48
Try wetter corn
Change harvest moisture from 20% to 22% in the reduced-tillage case. Two more moisture points add $12.96 per acre.
$58.34 / acre
- 0:48–1:00
Compare the size of the changes
Here the added drying cost is larger than the tillage saving. Use your own prices, dryer performance and operation rates before making a farm decision.
Change one input at a time