|
Red River Valley | Well through the 70's and 80's my grandfather and father farmed together, covering around 3000 acres in the early 70's to 5000 in the late 80's, and it seemed like they were always overpowered, in the mid 80's they had 3 MF 4900's, 4 N-7 gleaners, 3 semi's along with 2 tandom trucks. Plenty of equipment to cover the land. Equipment was all paid off, they did all the work themselves on equipment, wasn't really hard to work on those things. Now with all the electronics, I or they have no interest in tearing into these things. We are now a lot larger but running about the same amount of equipment. We still have 1 MF 4900, 3 case 4wd's, along with 2 FWD tractors. 3 class 9 combines, and a fleet of semi's. Man power is an issue, well not really this last year, due to the economy, but we push a lot more acres through the same amount of equipment. 20 years ago we would put 300 hours and a 4wd, now it is almost double that. So I am going to say that is the reason we trade every few years unlike years past where we would keep them for years and years... I think we are at a point where we may try and keep the equipment we have other then the combines for at least 5 years at a time, except the quads get $$$ to put tracks on. We are still on the fence weather or not they are worth the extra expense.. | |
|
Real reasons why we don't keep machinery longer?
