Rick,
As I mentioned it does seem obvious that the 250-hour "safe harbor" is not a viable option for folks like me who keep in touch with the farmer regarding basics, but let him do his job without interference.
As for how questions were asked and answered in TurboTax, I now see where within TT I should have stopped, read more, and given more thought and investigation into this matter before proceeding in the QBID direction I chose. This topic may simply be beyond the ability of the TT software to adequately address - so I am simply looking beyond TT for answers, including this forum.
Yes, thank you for the references. I have already studied some long reads by Roger McKeowen on this topic, including: "The Qualified Business Income (QBI) Deduction - What a Mess?" and "What is a Trade or Business" For Purposes of I.R.C. Sec. 199A". These are possibly some of the best treatises on this topic (they can be found by copying and pasting the quoted article names into Google or similar). I see you may have gotten the lease agreement advice from the latter of the two referenced articles (btw - I do have such a lease).
(Quite frankly, I am not sure why you threw in there the comment about this not being a texting discussion. I am far from being a tax professional, so I put a scenario together that fairly represents my case as well as many thousands of other taxpayers, and seem to have so far succeeded at soliciting thoughts regarding this complicated matter from people far better qualified than myself.)
