Reading Time: 7 minutes This year, any farmer expecting a new tractor in time for spring seeding knows they shouldn’t hold their breath. It may or may not arrive on time. Problems including staff shortages, transportation bottlenecks, a shortage of components — all a result of COVID-19 in one way or another — have hit ag equipment manufacturers simultaneously […] Read more
Used farm equipment sees big demand
There’s something very new — and unsettling — about this year’s used equipment market
What’s holding up delivery of your new tractor?
You’ve got a new tractor or combine on order, but will it get built in time? COVID-19 could hardly have hit the world’s farm machinery sector harder, or come at a worse time. Here’s how manufacturers hope to fight back
Reading Time: 5 minutes A few years ago I was standing in a brand new ag equipment manufacturing plant in Germany listening to a senior brand executive talk about its cutting-edge design. Compared to the company’s old facility, he remarked, its storage area was relatively tiny. When asked why, his reply came quickly and with a smile: “We use […] Read more
Farm machinery scores big in 2022
It used to be that trophies were won with brute strength. Now it’s electronics that score the big prizes and shows us what farming is on its way to becoming
Reading Time: 5 minutes When I spent a summer working as a mechanic’s helper at an Allis Chalmers dealership in 1978 as one of my first jobs, I recall a brand marketing rep coming out to hold a customer information session. He brought cut-away examples of some of the features being built into their newest tractors, including the brand’s […] Read more
The right sprayer for the job
Farmers are in love with the self-propelled sprayer, but it isn’t always the right choice
Reading Time: 5 minutes Anyone who has walked the aisles of Agritechnica in Germany, the world’s premiere global farm machinery event, would have quickly noticed the many and varied sprayers and brand names behind them that serve the European market. Farmers there have a virtual smorgasbord of brands and models to choose from. And there is another surprise too. […] Read more
Machines vs. climate
Shrewd machinery purchases have always been essential on the farm, but not like this. Emerging technologies mean huge potential payoffs for getting it right, and even bigger penalties if you don’t. Think precision farming. Think surviving climate change
Reading Time: 8 minutes In the last two or three decades, farmers have been offered a dizzying array of new features on ag equipment. There’s more power, more capacity, auto guidance, the list goes on. Yet now, looking to the future, it will be even more crucial to make the best possible purchase decisions and to integrate your technology […] Read more
Getting back to reality after COVID-19
Will farm shows and machinery events ever be the same again?
Reading Time: 6 minutes In my time as machinery editor, getting to publicity events held by equipment brands has meant spending a lot of time in hotels and on airplanes. My schedule saw me, on average, flying somewhere every six weeks, and you get to experience a lot of unusual things that way, like when a flight attendant on […] Read more
The green path forward in farm machinery
Deere’s autonomy manager talks strategy for a technology-driven future
Reading Time: 7 minutes A couple of years ago I was walking through the John Deere Pavilion in Moline, Illinois, when I noticed, parked on its own in its own corner, something I hadn’t seen in a good long time. It was the first autonomous concept tractor the green brand had ever shown to the public. Streamlined, roughly 60 […] Read more
Now that’s a beauty of a tractor
The look of today’s John Deere tractor starts in its partnership with BMW Designworks
Reading Time: 5 minutes If you walk into a BMW-owned automotive design studio, you’d expect to see scale models and concept drawings of all sorts of sleek automobiles. Seeing a scale model John Deere bulldozer among them might be a bit of a shock. But if it’s the BMW Designworks studio in Newbury Park, California, that you walk into, […] Read more
Farming in 2030: Big data
The last time there was a change this big in farming, it was mechanization. The question is: are you open to exploring how it can work for you?
Reading Time: 5 minutes If you’ve got a cell phone anywhere close to you as you read this, you’re part of the data revolution in agriculture, whether you realize it or not, and whether you want to be or not. That’s probably a good thing. Certainly, the potential benefits are amazing. “The smartphone is going to be one of […] Read more
Changes in agriculture are coming your way
These production challenges mean we’ll all have to stay sharp through the 2020s
Reading Time: 4 minutes Just because we can predict many of the production challenges heading our way doesn’t mean they’ll be easier to avoid, or that they’ll be easier to manage. In fact, by the time the new decade starts winding down in 2030, Canadian producers will have their hands just as full as they are today, if not […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
