Chester, GA and Griffith, IN | If I were going to JD I'd have a list of a few things, I won't go into my rants about them too much as I'm not a huge fan due to how they are well known to nickel and dime their suppliers badly, certain plants at least.
1. Basic maintenance needs to be basic. Skilled farm labor is just not available. I shouldn't have to take half a day to replace a water pump on a tractor. Not all parts can be replaced easily I understand this but they need to understand that alternators, starters, pumps need to be replaced and most farmers prefer to do this level of work theirself instead of paying a mechanic to come out and fix it.
2. Specialty tools are killing farmers.
3. Better reliability and manufacturing, meaning more parts made in US not sourced from overseas. Again I realize tractors are more sophisticated than before but do you really need to spend 15k on a rebuild that often or does the trans need to have work done that often?
4. I'd say they need to becareful not to price themselves out of the market, their equipment is getting up there from a price standpoint in our area. This goes to the previous poster that made the statement they seem to be more focused on the shareholder than the farmer.
5. Stay innovative on the tillage market, a lot of changes the last 10-15 years in planting and tillage and I expect that to continue for the next 10 years.
6. Fuel efficiency is a top priority that needs to be looked at, when you factor 5-8 gallons of fuel per acre to start and harvest a crop cutting that by one third of a gallon saves us over a dollar per acre in fuel costs.
7. Over the road is more and more of a consideration now considering some farmland is becoming wider spread as farms become larger.
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What would you say to John Deere's tractor engineers?
