What Farmers Do in the Off Season

While the bulk of a farmer’s work is done during their crop’s season. A lot of work also has to be done behind the scenes during the off-season to prepare for planting and harvesting. Today, we will take a look at what farmers do to prep their farms during the off-season for a successful harvest.

Maintenance and Repairs

The off-season is the perfect time to maintain and repair the farm and any equipment that you’re not currently using. If you have been looking to upgrade or replace a piece of equipment or have a lot of small repairs that need to be fixed, the off-season is the time to accomplish all of these tasks! It will make planting and harvesting much easier and much more efficient if you take care of all the maintenance and repairs that need to be done while you’re not currently using all your equipment.

Livestock

If you have livestock on your farm, then you really don’t have an “off-season”. Livestock needs to be taken care of year-round and just because it’s not harvesting season or there is bad weather, the livestock still needs attention. It’s especially important during bad weather to make sure the livestock feed bins are full, their water isn’t frozen if there’s cold weather, and that your feed shed is stocked up with everything you would need so that if trucks can’t get out to make deliveries you are prepared with enough food stores that your livestock won’t go hungry.

Complete Your Checklist

If you have a laundry list of to-dos that never got done during harvesting, the off-season is the perfect time to tick them off! Anything that gets put to the back burner during planting and harvesting can finally get done during the off-season as you will have more time to focus on the little things such as organizing work benches or maintaining and repairing things on your farm that have gotten overlooked during the hustle and bustle of harvest.

Ways to Improve

There is always room for improvement and the best way to improve is to do research and to continue to educate yourself. As a farmer, this is not the most feasible task to complete while planting and harvesting crops. Because of this, the off-season gives you valuable time that you wouldn’t normally have to continue to educate yourself. You can learn about new technology that can help improve your processes or about new techniques to make your farms more efficient. Another way to continue learning and to make your farm better is to analyze data and look for areas of improvement in the fields.

Planning

Now that you have a little more free time available, you can start planning for next season. This is a time to plan out everything that needs to get done and to set goals. Whether you want to grow your farm in the upcoming season or reach a new level of financial income, the off-season gives you time so you can sit down and evaluate what you want to achieve in the upcoming season and how to do it.

What do you do on your farm during the off-season? Let us know. If better crop insurance is on your list, contact Crop Insurance Solutions today to talk about your options!