Equip Blog

One of the great things about being a machinery editor is you occasionally get invited to vist engineering and assembly plants. R&D facilities, where machines are designed and tested, are fascinating. Watching new tractors go through a variety of tests intended to break them is something to see. The testing bays at R&D facilities belonging […] Read more

According to Martin Richenhagen, AGCO’s chairman, president and CEO, the company hasn’t yet reached the level of sales it would like to see for its equipment in North America. Speaking during a recent interview on the U.S. Fox News Network, he said most of the organization’s sales occur in the remainder of the world. A […] Read more

It’s farm auction sale season again. Aside from being places where producers can do some serious buying and selling, these sales are also social events. Local farmers get together at them to talk to neighbours and see if they can pick up a bargain in the process. But in the last few years, the number […] Read more

Nope. That headline wasn’t meant to refer to the weather. Something I saw this week made me wonder if we farm machinery enthusiasts might be on the verge of being considered “cool”. As I staked my claim to the sofa and the TV remote control in order to watch all twenty-odd hours of this fall’s […] Read more

When—or if—the rain finally stops, farmers will be logging some pretty long hours in combine cabs to try and catch up before the snow falls. But after a couple of solid 12 or 14 hour shifts, fatigue can start to set in. That is exactly when accidents start to happen. And it’s far too easy […] Read more

A few months ago I was asked to help Farmers Weekly, a publication in the United Kingdom, put together a snapshot of Canadian farming statistics for one of their issues. One of the questions the editor wanted me to address was how much Canadian farmers are paying for marked diesel fuel. Of course the exact […] Read more

To say the weather this season has been extraordinary would be an understatement. The virtually non-stop rain that made spring seeding difficult is now making harvest a challenge. It’s not hard to find lodged crops in fields. Getting them swathed will test the limits of machines. In the last issue of Grainews, Lyndsey Smith had […] Read more

If last weeks topic—Gleaner’s new transverse rotaries, in case you didn’t read it—wasn’t enough to satisfy your desire to see new combines. Here are some more for you to look at it. Claas has just unveiled its new, 700 Series Lexions. Claas has five models available for 2011 in its new 700 Series Lexion combine […] Read more

Earlier this year, Grainews was the first western Canadian farm publication to break the news AGCO intended to release updated versions of its transverse rotary Gleaner combines. A few weeks ago, on this blog, I promised you a look at it. Now that the media blackout is over, here it is. AGCO has been updating […] Read more

“Roger, go with throttle up” is one of the most memorable statements heard in recent history. Those words were spoken by the space shuttle Challenger’s commander just moments before it exploded. For producers, a variation on that phrase, “Go with throttle down” sums up what engineers have bee encouraging them to do. Run equipment at […] Read more