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>For anyone that doesn't know, farm equipment generally lasts a long time. There are farms out there still operating 70+ year old John Deere tractors. With prop

>For anyone that doesn't know, farm equipment generally lasts a long time. There are farms out there still operating 70+ year old John Deere tractors. With proper servicing such equipment lasts a really long time. There is basically nobody out there operating even a 80s combine because when you are dealing with razor thin commodities margins a couple percent efficiency in machinery applied across your whole fleet can/will make or break you. Some boutique fruit farmer on a tiny amount of land an hour from Boston might be using an old tractor but nobody outside that sort of use case is running antiquated equipment. Not to say everyone is running locked down JD crap but old equipment isn't nearly as responsible for the contents of the supermarket as HN likes to think it is. >As an aside, your car's warranty is essentially a scheme to make more money similar to this. Using parts of services that aren't "genuine" can void your warranty. This was made illegal decades ago.

kochb 5y ago
When old equipment pops up on small farms, it's usually someone operating on a small scale (~300ac or so), making a profit off land they own by keeping their costs down. Definitely not a great way to earn an income, and it probably doesn't cover their bills, but people do it. Otherwise, the old equipment is typically used for odd jobs around the farm, like the use case of hauling produce you mentioned. I'd agree that you see it less often with combines; they're a much more complicated machine.
- mattferderer 5y ago
  > When old equipment pops up on small farms, it's usually someone operating on a small scale (~300ac or so), making a profit off land they own by keeping their costs down. Definitely not a great way to earn an income, and it probably doesn't cover their bills, but people do it. I would say a lot of farmers who own their land are able to keep costs down & make a decent profit with older equipment. It's cheaper & can be easier/cheaper for them to fix instead of taking it somewhere. I also recall stories about the amount of fertilizer one puts down being similar. Some people crowd their crops & spend a lot on additional fertilizer to try to boost their yields. Some try to keep costs down & accept a smaller yield. A large amount of variables seem to determine who comes out ahead.
Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago
Diesel engines have been around for 130 years. Any improvements that could be made were made decades ago. I don't think you need a tractor for fruit farming.
- bluGill 5y ago
  There have been large improvements to emissions in the past 10 years. And efficiency has been improved a bit too (though often emissions and efficiency conflict so this tends to be a wash)
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  That's great if you have a diesel engine. Prior to the 80s and depending on application tons of stuff came equipped with gas engines. Those machines are fuel hogs compared to diesel stuff. If you have a diesel from prior to the era when everything grew turbochargers there's another fuel economy cliff but it's not as drastic. Engines aren't really a problem as long as you don't let Washington bureaucrats tell you what to put on them (emissions components are a long term consumable on modern diesel engines). There's all sorts of incremental improvements to things that just make the machines easier to operate and faster at what they do. More and more equipment (or functions on said equipment) has been going hydraulic over time and machines have been adding more and more auxiliary circuits to support that. If you're moving a lot of stuff not on pallets a pair of forks that has hydraulic width adjustment is a huge upgrade over manual. Joystick style controls are a lot smoother and faster to operate than lever style controls. New mostly glass cabs have amazing visibility compared to the mostly sheet metal cabs of old. Having a cab at all greatly improves your ability to work in the elements. A 10yr difference in equipment isn't much but for a given HP you'll start seeing a big difference in productivity at 20-30yr as all the little stuff adds up.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  This is actually entirely untrue. Combustion engines have had something of a renaissance the last 15 years as new manufacturing and simulation technologies have enabled much more precise machining and smarter designs. This has allowed old designs to get much more efficient, and new designs once infeasible to become commonplace. The power output of an engine that achieves 30mpg today is easily double that of just 15 years ago. Turbos are a good example. Before, they were very expensive to add to a car, and altered the driving experience such that they weren't very practical for the average driver. Now, essentially every new combustion engine has them because you can lower displacement and actively manage power output to a greater degree, pushing up efficiency. Some cool things are on the horizon as well, like camless engines and opposed piston diesel engines.
bluGill 5y ago
Most farmers I see have an old tractor around for odd jobs. The money and most of the work is done by the new tractors, but those new tractors tend to be very big, and sometimes you only need a small tractor for a little job. These little jobs are NEVER time critical though, so if the tractor breaks they fix over the next few weeks and then do the job. During the busy seasons farmers are working 16 hours days and they can't afford for the machines to break. However there are off months where nothing needs to be done now. The busy season for a corn farmer is planting in April, and Harvest in October, and random weeks between them for weed control (These months vary by regions and should be taken as an example not truth), with the time in between mostly filled with activities that need to be done but there is no hurry to do them today.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  My Dad had a small German made John Deere tractor from the early seventies that was used for odd jobs. But it put on more hours per year than the big tractors because it was used year round. Some of the work it did wasn't time critical, but some was. In winter, animals need to be fed daily. That old tractor was more reliable than the newer ones. When he sold the tractor along with the farm, he got more than it sold for brand new in the early seventies.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >When he sold the tractor along with the farm, he got more than it sold for brand new in the early seventies. After inflation?
    - bryanlarsen 5y ago
      No. He bought it for $17k and sold it for $19k IIRC.
Sytten 5y ago
It really depends where you live I would say. US big farms sure this is probably a right statement, but around here (Quebec, Canada). We still see a lot of old farming equipment being used daily on small farm where we just can't afford a 500k harvester or 250k tractor. Personnaly we have an old combine from at least the 70 when we need a small field to be harvested. The rest we contract to other people. We have a few tractors from the 60 for small work, but use mostly tractors from the 90/2000 for field work.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Québécois?
ozarkerD 5y ago
My dad and grandfather both use farmall tractors from the 30s on their farms. It’s not uncommon
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Farming what products and where? And are these tractors used as their daily equipment or do they use something more modern by default and only bring the old stuff out on the rare occasions when the number of tractors doing tractor things is a big enough production bottleneck to warrant it? I work on plenty of old junk for people. I know how this kind of stuff gets used and how important it is and isn't to business operations. There are a very tiny number of people who run large fleets of old junk with enough redundancy they are not lacking for uptime. These people are a rounding error compared to the number of people who have one or more new-ish machines and keep a couple pieces of old junk (usually very large or very niche machines) around for a particular use that the newer machines could cover but not as well as something dedicated. And this is how it works in pretty much any industry that uses heavy equipment, not just farming.
  - ozarkerD 5y ago
    Soybeans and hay for cattle in Missouri. Together they run about 250 acres, probably a quarter of that is wooded but still a decent landmass to cover. And those farmalls are their daily drivers. I believe my dad’s got a newer one he uses for it’s pto for digging post holes and such. Those old tractors are workhorses, if you know how to take care of them and work on them yourself they’ll last forever.
    - bluGill 5y ago
      250 acres is a small farm these days. Those old tractors can keep running on small farms for many more years if you care for them. Though upgrading to a newer used tractor may be worth it for the the greater fuel efficiency (you didn't say, but I'm guessing those are gasoline tractors, diesel was just starting to come out in that era)
thelittlenag 5y ago
I grew up on a farm in north central Montana. EVERY farmer, even the bigger wealthier ones, all ran at least some equipment that was 30+ years old. We were a mid-sized operation and ran equipment that was at best between 10 and 40 years old as our primary equipment. A classmate of mine, who now farms their family farm, still runs a large 4WD tractor that must be 50+ years old at this point. They have newer equipment, but the old stuff still gets used.
kingkawn 5y ago
vast majority of the global south is using animal labor and older machinery still for small scale farming that feeds huge numbers of people.
runnerup 5y ago
>>As an aside, your car's warranty is essentially a scheme to make more money similar to this. Using parts of services that aren't "genuine" can void your warranty. > This was made illegal decades ago. AIUI, only for consumer equipment. The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act “generally” (non-strictly) excludes commercial and industrial equipment. It strictly, explicitly, and strongly excludes agricultural equipment from its pro-consumer requirements. § 700.1 (b) https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2018-title16-vol1/xml/CFR-2018-title16-vol1-part700.xml https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2018-title16-vol1/xm...
silexia 5y ago
Lots of claims here, can you provide evidence?

kochb 5y ago

When old equipment pops up on small farms, it's usually someone operating on a small scale (~300ac or so), making a profit off land they own by keeping their costs down. Definitely not a great way to earn an income, and it probably doesn't cover their bills, but people do it. Otherwise, the old equipment is typically used for odd jobs around the farm, like the use case of hauling produce you mentioned. I'd agree that you see it less often with combines; they're a much more complicated machine.

mattferderer 5y ago
> When old equipment pops up on small farms, it's usually someone operating on a small scale (~300ac or so), making a profit off land they own by keeping their costs down. Definitely not a great way to earn an income, and it probably doesn't cover their bills, but people do it. I would say a lot of farmers who own their land are able to keep costs down & make a decent profit with older equipment. It's cheaper & can be easier/cheaper for them to fix instead of taking it somewhere. I also recall stories about the amount of fertilizer one puts down being similar. Some people crowd their crops & spend a lot on additional fertilizer to try to boost their yields. Some try to keep costs down & accept a smaller yield. A large amount of variables seem to determine who comes out ahead.

Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago

Diesel engines have been around for 130 years. Any improvements that could be made were made decades ago. I don't think you need a tractor for fruit farming.

bluGill 5y ago
There have been large improvements to emissions in the past 10 years. And efficiency has been improved a bit too (though often emissions and efficiency conflict so this tends to be a wash)
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
That's great if you have a diesel engine. Prior to the 80s and depending on application tons of stuff came equipped with gas engines. Those machines are fuel hogs compared to diesel stuff. If you have a diesel from prior to the era when everything grew turbochargers there's another fuel economy cliff but it's not as drastic. Engines aren't really a problem as long as you don't let Washington bureaucrats tell you what to put on them (emissions components are a long term consumable on modern diesel engines). There's all sorts of incremental improvements to things that just make the machines easier to operate and faster at what they do. More and more equipment (or functions on said equipment) has been going hydraulic over time and machines have been adding more and more auxiliary circuits to support that. If you're moving a lot of stuff not on pallets a pair of forks that has hydraulic width adjustment is a huge upgrade over manual. Joystick style controls are a lot smoother and faster to operate than lever style controls. New mostly glass cabs have amazing visibility compared to the mostly sheet metal cabs of old. Having a cab at all greatly improves your ability to work in the elements. A 10yr difference in equipment isn't much but for a given HP you'll start seeing a big difference in productivity at 20-30yr as all the little stuff adds up.
BobbyJo 5y ago
This is actually entirely untrue. Combustion engines have had something of a renaissance the last 15 years as new manufacturing and simulation technologies have enabled much more precise machining and smarter designs. This has allowed old designs to get much more efficient, and new designs once infeasible to become commonplace. The power output of an engine that achieves 30mpg today is easily double that of just 15 years ago. Turbos are a good example. Before, they were very expensive to add to a car, and altered the driving experience such that they weren't very practical for the average driver. Now, essentially every new combustion engine has them because you can lower displacement and actively manage power output to a greater degree, pushing up efficiency. Some cool things are on the horizon as well, like camless engines and opposed piston diesel engines.

bluGill 5y ago

Most farmers I see have an old tractor around for odd jobs. The money and most of the work is done by the new tractors, but those new tractors tend to be very big, and sometimes you only need a small tractor for a little job. These little jobs are NEVER time critical though, so if the tractor breaks they fix over the next few weeks and then do the job. During the busy seasons farmers are working 16 hours days and they can't afford for the machines to break. However there are off months where nothing needs to be done now. The busy season for a corn farmer is planting in April, and Harvest in October, and random weeks between them for weed control (These months vary by regions and should be taken as an example not truth), with the time in between mostly filled with activities that need to be done but there is no hurry to do them today.

bryanlarsen 5y ago
My Dad had a small German made John Deere tractor from the early seventies that was used for odd jobs. But it put on more hours per year than the big tractors because it was used year round. Some of the work it did wasn't time critical, but some was. In winter, animals need to be fed daily. That old tractor was more reliable than the newer ones. When he sold the tractor along with the farm, he got more than it sold for brand new in the early seventies.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >When he sold the tractor along with the farm, he got more than it sold for brand new in the early seventies. After inflation?
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    No. He bought it for $17k and sold it for $19k IIRC.

Sytten 5y ago

It really depends where you live I would say. US big farms sure this is probably a right statement, but around here (Quebec, Canada). We still see a lot of old farming equipment being used daily on small farm where we just can't afford a 500k harvester or 250k tractor. Personnaly we have an old combine from at least the 70 when we need a small field to be harvested. The rest we contract to other people. We have a few tractors from the 60 for small work, but use mostly tractors from the 90/2000 for field work.

atatatat 5y ago
Québécois?

ozarkerD 5y ago

My dad and grandfather both use farmall tractors from the 30s on their farms. It’s not uncommon

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Farming what products and where? And are these tractors used as their daily equipment or do they use something more modern by default and only bring the old stuff out on the rare occasions when the number of tractors doing tractor things is a big enough production bottleneck to warrant it? I work on plenty of old junk for people. I know how this kind of stuff gets used and how important it is and isn't to business operations. There are a very tiny number of people who run large fleets of old junk with enough redundancy they are not lacking for uptime. These people are a rounding error compared to the number of people who have one or more new-ish machines and keep a couple pieces of old junk (usually very large or very niche machines) around for a particular use that the newer machines could cover but not as well as something dedicated. And this is how it works in pretty much any industry that uses heavy equipment, not just farming.
- ozarkerD 5y ago
  Soybeans and hay for cattle in Missouri. Together they run about 250 acres, probably a quarter of that is wooded but still a decent landmass to cover. And those farmalls are their daily drivers. I believe my dad’s got a newer one he uses for it’s pto for digging post holes and such. Those old tractors are workhorses, if you know how to take care of them and work on them yourself they’ll last forever.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    250 acres is a small farm these days. Those old tractors can keep running on small farms for many more years if you care for them. Though upgrading to a newer used tractor may be worth it for the the greater fuel efficiency (you didn't say, but I'm guessing those are gasoline tractors, diesel was just starting to come out in that era)

thelittlenag 5y ago

I grew up on a farm in north central Montana. EVERY farmer, even the bigger wealthier ones, all ran at least some equipment that was 30+ years old. We were a mid-sized operation and ran equipment that was at best between 10 and 40 years old as our primary equipment. A classmate of mine, who now farms their family farm, still runs a large 4WD tractor that must be 50+ years old at this point. They have newer equipment, but the old stuff still gets used.

kingkawn 5y ago

vast majority of the global south is using animal labor and older machinery still for small scale farming that feeds huge numbers of people.

runnerup 5y ago

>>As an aside, your car's warranty is essentially a scheme to make more money similar to this. Using parts of services that aren't "genuine" can void your warranty. > This was made illegal decades ago. AIUI, only for consumer equipment. The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act “generally” (non-strictly) excludes commercial and industrial equipment. It strictly, explicitly, and strongly excludes agricultural equipment from its pro-consumer requirements. § 700.1 (b) https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2018-title16-vol1/xml/CFR-2018-title16-vol1-part700.xml https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2018-title16-vol1/xm...

silexia 5y ago

Lots of claims here, can you provide evidence?