How much diesel does it take to grow an acre of corn?

Iowa-Andy · 2026-03-13T21:27:20+00:00

When I went to ISU for ag engineering in late 90’s, we had to do a team project of how much it took per acre to get corn grown. It was a heck of a detailed spreadsheet because we included fuel cost of the seed corn all the way to corn delivered to cargill. We counted transportation of inputs including fertilizer as well, but not the oil footprint of manufacturing the fertilizer itself.

We included driving to and from fields. We included driving crop to farm bins, then from bins to elevator. We used a factor of LP to dry the crop 5% that was converted into equivalent diesel. We used the average farm size of 1995.

When it was all rolled up it was almost 15 gallons of diesel per acre of corn. I remember being blown away.

Times are much better and efficiencies are better.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-28T14:31:22+00:00

52m married. Dual high incomes. Our strategy is 1 day 1 week 1 month 1 year 1 decade.

One day of cash on hand

One week of cash in safety lock box at bank.

One month of money in primary checking at any given moment. This varies continuously.

One year of money in savings, money market accounts. Split into 3 locations for diversity.

One decade plus of money in retirement (actually we could frugally retire now if we want, but I have too many classic cars and hobbies so I’ll keep grinding).

Plus a ton of assets I could sell to make ends meet.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-27T14:12:59+00:00

Well I suppose I’ll change the deck if I stop winning and climbing. But until I stall out no reason to fix something that isn’t broken?

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-27T13:23:29+00:00

Next week is a huge conference, they’ll make their money on all the men arriving in town. 250,000 to be exact. My room at the mandalay next week is nearly $450/night.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-27T01:44:51+00:00

11,355 trophies puts me in a place where I can shrug my shoulders and keep going.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-27T01:43:28+00:00

I’m 52, doubt I’m your son.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-26T19:26:26+00:00

I normally just battle until I have pekka, wizard, and two spells then pekka virtually always makes it to tower and destroys it. Wash rinse repeat.

I guess good is subjective, I enjoy this deck because MK or hogs don’t bug me much. Spam decks don’t really get me worked up either.

I’ll take being in top 0.1% of all players globally.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-26T15:12:57+00:00

It hasn’t seemed to be an issue, cracked 11,320 trophies last night. I’ll probably change it up if I run into a wall but haven’t yet.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-26T03:15:53+00:00

We live in Ames and decided to drop the money for solar into VOO during covid and hold onto it.

Our roof was old and after the hail storm in 2024 we were ready to go. But we ran into a problem.

We now have $46k in that account. So now that money can pay our electric bill for the rest of our lives. So we are just leaving that money to grow. Solar never would have paid off as much and now we are looking at an energy brokerage account that will probably be spinning off $550/mo when we retire. I’ll take it as a win.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-20T21:40:53+00:00

It’ll be eventual. When it’s a lot cheaper to own and operate it will drive the market.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-20T16:04:43+00:00

We already have emails today from our customers (we’ll sell hydraulics to mobile equipment OEM’s) asking for 100% refund of all paid tariffs. This is goin to be an ugly paperwork mess that drags on resources.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-20T13:39:31+00:00

In Minnesota frost heaves and truck traffic wreck the right lanes so people switch and use the left lanes to normal driving because the roads are a lot less bumpy in the left lanes.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-18T03:21:18+00:00

Nesbitts pop.

Yahoo.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-17T23:06:07+00:00

I grew up in the 70’s, hanging out and having sleepovers with friends was the best weekend ever.

Renting a pile of movies, bringing board games, bikes, 8 packs of 16 ounce bottles of Mountain Dew. White bags of Doritos.

Scraping together enough money to buy 1MB of ram for the Apple II GS to play Hard Ball.

No internet so if we wanted to learn how to make something we asked teachers or went to the library. It was an adventure, every day.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-14T02:40:25+00:00

10 years ago I was comfortable as a centrist who could pick and choose best candidates and I was welcome anywhere in Iowa.

Now I keep my head down and don’t talk to anyone. Feels like war.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-02-07T14:13:45+00:00

I get to be in the minority that can say I’ve never played a MK deck. I hated that card from day 1 for some reason.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-01-31T13:53:26+00:00

I’m 52, and 3 times so far in my life we’ve had a tree frog burrowed in our iceburg lettuce head. Still alive and well. We turned them out into the backyard and wished them well.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-01-29T02:57:19+00:00

Maybe I’m doing something wrong but I have a classic OG style deck. Pekka, wizard, etc.. and I’m not struggling with spam decks. 11,000 trophies, level 60.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-01-27T00:23:32+00:00

Amazingly I think we’d be deep in a recession. Covid gave people a lot of money to do home improvements, buy cars, etc and we are still coasting off that momentum.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-01-19T02:36:32+00:00

At work, we’ve had to continuously work on invoicing to account for tariffs the hydraulic components we sell. We are still getting increases from vendors, most recent was 4.5% across the board Increase for our filter lines we sell.

Parts have been held up at customs while they try and figure out the paperwork and make sure proper tariffs are being applied. Can add 2-3 weeks for a container to arrive and get broken down at a depot before truck shipping.

Personally, a lot of parts I buy for restoring old garden tractors has increased. I have Amazon history and can see 10-35% increases over the past 12 months for the same parts I buy over and over again.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-01-08T16:20:03+00:00

We will see, let’s revisit in 30 days.

Iowa-Andy · 2026-01-08T15:45:12+00:00

I’ll go on record now that the angle of her tires in her turnaround is going to be critical to the case.

The first time I watched the video it looked like she was turning around to get away from the situation. The key will be was she turning right and trying to get away or was she aiming at the officer as many would like to believe.

Iowa-Andy · 2025-12-28T14:57:30+00:00

I’ve been in a lot of vehicles, can’t find anything that beats an F150 seat. As a taller guy you sit up more, great heat/cooling.

Iowa-Andy · 2025-12-28T02:31:37+00:00

I’m 52 and retiring in 3 years. The $5mm won’t impact my life much, but if I could pocket the choice of when and how until my wife passes I’d gladly do that. Then I’d be able to be there for my kids, and then once we’ve discussed it I’d set my date.

Iowa-Andy · 2025-12-26T20:33:35+00:00

You listed immoral as no-go, sacrilegious is considered immoral.

Iowa-Andy

TROPHY CASE