Dealers adapt to no-till farming

The onset of no-till farming has created a different demand in farm equipment, but a lot of farmers are still using conventional equipment to till their fields, said Brad Victor, owner of Victor's Inc., a Case International implement dealer in Fremont.

With no-till, farmers use less equipment, but still need a tractor and planter, Victor said. Many times, farmers adapt their planters to meet their specific needs when using no-till techniques.

One of the most common adaptations is to put a special tool on the back of a combine that will spread the residue of corn, soybean and grain sorghum stalks behind the combine during harvest, he said.

Even with the increase in the number of farmers who use no-till techniques, Victor said there's still a large percentage of farmers in the area who still use conventional tilling techniques.

“About 50 percent, maybe more, of my customers do a certain amount of tillage,” he said. “There's a small percentage that do completely no till, maybe 35 percent. Maybe that bucks the trend a little. But there's still a lot of tillage, especially out here on the flat bottom.”

About four years ago, there was a trend in lower equipment sales for some of the conventional farming equipment used to till farmland, he said, but within the past year there has been a resurgence in the sales of that equipment.

“There could be a variety of things for that,” he said. “It could just be because of the newer models. We did do a push for some of that where we demonstrated them.”

But regardless of what techniques a farmer uses, there is some equipment that all farmers need, he said.

“All farmers need a tractor. All farmers need a planter. All farmers need a combine. It's the other equipment that is different” for farmers who till their land.

Among all farmers, those who do no-till don't push their tractors as hard because they don't make as many passes in their fields, which makes a tractor more attractive for Victor in terms of a trade-in.

“That makes them quite appealing in the resale market,” he said, adding that like any major equipment or vehicle, “used equipment has good resale value.”

“We'll try to trade people out of things after two or three years,” he said. “People don't drive their farm equipment into the dirt anymore. People don't do that with their cars. Farm equipment is much the same way.”