Competitors’ Alliance

In four years he has more than doubled the acreage he harvests, thanks to an informal partnership formed during his second year of custom harvesting. The arrangement lets him work with several other custom operators. All have different machines; two have trucks, and one has a mower-conditioner. When they work together, the harvest in their part of Wisconsin goes a lot faster.

This working relationship among competitors started when one of the other custom operators lost his forage harvester in a fire. Not wanting to replace it and knowing that the young Vruwink had recently purchased a new one, he asked the young man to consider entering an informal partnership.

Under the plan, Vruwink would do the cutting and the other man would use his trucks to haul the crop out of the field. It wasn’t long before the partnership was extended to include two more custom operators, one with a mower-conditioner and the other with a truck. Working as a unit, they make fast work of large harvesting jobs.

The four independent operators bid harvesting work either as a group or individually. When they bid the work as a group, Vruwink serves as the general contractor. Farmers pay him for the work, and he in turn pays the others.

The Personal Touch

“I like to believe farmers call us back because of the quality of work we do,” he said. “We each have a background in farming. And most importantly, we treat each farm as if it were our own crop we were harvesting. We just try to do a nice job out in the field.”

The youngest of four children, Vruwink grew up on the family farm near Milladore. Unsure of what career to pursue after high school, he worked a brief time for a local trucking company, then for a custom grain combiner.

A demand for custom harvesters near home caught his attention. “I asked around a little bit to get a feel for how much work I might be able to get as a custom harvester,” he said. “I decided there was demand enough to let me cover the payments on a new forage harvester.”

Financing A Harvester

His next step was getting the financing to buy the machine. With little money saved and no track record for borrowing money, he knew financing a major farm machine would be difficult. But his local New Holland dealer led him through a financing plan that turned out to be easier than the young man could ever have anticipated. Vruwink’s older brother, Phil, provided an older harvester and a pull-type chopper as trade-ins on a new self-propelled harvester. Together with his little brother’s modest savings, there was sufficient down payment for the new machine. Then, through New Holland Credit, the company’s financing arm, the dealer was able to finance the balance owed on the machine.

Phil operates the family dairy farm where the brothers were raised, so Forrest was able to repay his brother for the down payment by harvesting corn and alfalfa for him. “My brother also co-signed the loan for me,” said Vruwink. “So without his help, I wouldn’t have been able to get started in this business.”

His very first customer was his cousin who passed the word on that Vruwink would do custom harvesting. Another client was a veterinarian, and, “he also told people that I did custom harvesting,” Vruwink said. By season’s end the young man had custom harvested for 40 farmers.

Big Equipment Advantage

Most of his dairy farmer customers the first year had small herds of 100 cows or fewer. Their need was to fill upright silos rather than large, open bunkers used on larger farms. With his big harvester, Vruwink was able to harvest crop and fill an upright silo in only one to two days. Pull-type equipment would have taken longer.

In another unique arrangement, he leases a new tractor in partnership with a custom combiner. He uses the tractor from spring to midsummer for cutting alfalfa. His co-owner has use for it in late summer and fall.

It’s a money-saving arrangement for both and gives them the security of a warranty. “The three-year lease costs each of us only $6,000 a year for a tractor that’s under warranty,” he said. “If the tractor would break down, my dealer would do his best to loan or rent me another one. They know I have to keep my machinery working.”

Keeping It Running

“When you have several hundred acres of alfalfa lying on the ground, you have to be able to pick it up when it’s ready to be picked up,” said Vruwink. “That’s where the dealer comes in. If my harvester breaks down, they’ll do their best to get it fixed or find me one to rent.”

His dealer helped him through a major breakdown last year when a clutch went out on the forage harvester. It was a four or five-day repair job. “My dealer brought a new machine out, and I used it as a demo,” said Vruwink.

“Then, the dealer called local farmers they thought might want to see the new machine run, and some people did come to see it working in the field. It was a win-win situation. It turned out nice for me because I got a machine to run, and my dealer benefited also because he had an opportunity to show the machine to other people.”

The Weather Factor

A growing reputation for doing quality work along with the several custom services Vruwink offers farmers give him a long operating season. By adding custom planting last year his work season extended from April to early December, when he was still cutting corn because wet weather earlier in the fall had delayed harvest. Adverse weather two years ago led to the young man’s longest workday of his life, 80 consecutive hours. “We were trying to harvest first-crop alfalfa, but wet weather had pushed us behind schedule,” said Vruwink. “We had fields to cover for three different farmers, and they all wanted it done at once.”

Once the weather cleared, he and his partners just kept their machines going, taking breaks of just 15 minutes at a time to stretch and walk around. The farmers provided meals, coffee, and doughnuts. “I slept for two days straight after that,” recalled Vruwink.

A pressing schedule allows little time for vacations in the summer and little opportunity to spend time with friends or family. Still, the business has its rewards. “I’m happy as long as I can make the payments on my machines and earn a decent living,” Vruwink said. He continues to work for a local trucking company during winter, but enjoys being his own boss for the rest of the year.

“I don’t like punching a time clock for someone else and wondering what my life is going to be like five years from now,” he said. “It feels good to be able to determine my own future.”