FYI

Bartkus Oil in Boulder CO gave me prices today:

B20 $2.599/gal
B100 2.899/gal

Holy &%@#, The price of B-100 has come down dramatically. Was $3.40 the last time I bought it.

Deadeye-Is that price at the pump or bulk price? If bulk, how much, I know bulk prices go down for larger amounts.

Nar, try this for bulk. retailers dont do bulk much.

http://biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/distributors/default.shtm

That was how I found bulk prices last time, I just looked at the list and called blue sun.. At the time it was pretty high, haven't checked lately.. Might seem better now with regular diesel so high. I think I'll bug the local coop fuel guy to call blue sun and see if he can become a distributer.

How much fuel do you run through in a year? Gal/acre?

Probably about 8000 gallons a year. Mostly diesel, with at least 1000 being gas for the trucks at harvest. Trying to get rid of the old 1980 model chevy c70 gas trucks and go to newer diesels, stupid gas trucks get 3 mpg unloaded or loaded. Probably the fuel used in the tractors comes out to maybe 6 gallons per acre... Maybe less. Can't do much no till around here where you need to flood irrigate.

Deadeye-Is that price at the pump or bulk price? If bulk, how much, I know bulk prices go down for larger amounts.

nar;

I doubt it is bulk. They sell B-100 from a ~500 gal tank indoors. Look Bartkus Oil up on the internet and you will find their phone no. I am going over theree soon to get some for testing and additive. If I learn anything I will post .

Probably about 8000 gallons a year. Mostly diesel, with at least 1000 being gas for the trucks at harvest. Trying to get rid of the old 1980 model chevy c70 gas trucks and go to newer diesels, stupid gas trucks get 3 mpg unloaded or loaded. Probably the fuel used in the tractors comes out to maybe 6 gallons per acre... Maybe less. Can't do much no till around here where you need to flood irrigate. Ouch thats a lot of fuel. Im guessing that whatever you plant is not hand harvested......(I recall you saying something about sugar beats, I thought those would be hand harvested....)

Let me tell you, there are some funny laws about biodiesel blends, SPECIFICALLY when it comes to the $1/g tax rebate. I think that if you mix biodiesel (B99) that you are elegible for that rebate for ag diesel. But if you get B100, you are not elegible for the full $1/g. Wierd stuff.

Poke around here.......for 8k gallons a year, a few cents difference turns out to be a pretty good chunk of $$$. http://biodiesel.org/news/taxincentive/

When you are hoping to get 20 tons or better per acre, you damn sure wouldn't want to hand harvest beets. It was done that way in the 20s though... See my post here to see what we use. http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18846
Corn for silage uses a lot of fuel too. If I ever get around to it I'll make a page like what dutch has with pictures of our farming stuff.

I heard recently about being able to get some tax credit thing for using part bio on the farm, some conservation program. Going to look into that too, saving any money on that many gallons is a good thing.

You do a farm page with info and pics, and Ill do the same. I can sit and talk about this type of stuff all day.

Where you gettin your water? Irrigate with waterwheel or flood?

What else do you grow?

RE BD: I doubt that youll be able to find anything oved B5 thats cheaper than red diesel. In fact Ide be suprised. It may only pay off if you figure in the possibility if it saving you a major repair down the road due to increased lubricity.

We irrigate with furrow irrigation someplaces, some pivots. Would prefer all pivots, but they are expensive. We get our water from wells on some places. We also have an irrigation district set up of ditches that come from several reservoirs in the mountains to catch snowmelt water. Since the drought started 4-5 years ago we haven't got crap from the reservoirs though, so half the places we farm have no water. If the place has no well then it has been dryland the last couple years. In an area where yearly precipation is less than 12 inches, that ain't good. Half the farms we rent aren't really worth renting right now, not making any money there, but we hang onto them because they would be good to have if we get our reservoirs filled up again.

We farm sugarbeets, corn for grain and for silage, hay, barley for coors and for feed.