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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I caught the comment about pricing of
machinery. Historically and even recently prices of new and used
tractors are lower in California than anywhere other than maybe
Texas. There are multiple reasons. First, the sheer size of
California agriculture from the standpoint of crop production.
Second, many of the tractors needed are limited in horsepower by
the need to handle the specialty crops so there are more sold.
Third, we farm year round so many units accumulate a LOT of hours.
Third, there is more competition between dealerships than in most
parts of the country. This is changing a little with John Deere
and AGCO promoting the HUGE dealership groups which seriously
raises the prices farmers pay.... Last, the sheer number of used
units that ship to Mexico.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"> Right now there are many more
auctions than usual of either "change of operations" , i.e. we are
dropping all crops that are not automated harvest, or shutting
down of operations. Crop prices are not increasing at the same
time that costs are skyrocketing and labor is scarce. Water is a
big question in parts of the state too now. Tonight we are
supposed to get another BIG rainstorm adding onto the higher than
normal rainfall this winter, but last year was drought and we had
a huge drought prior, so many water tables are not in great shape.
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"> Tell Scott to have fun with that
MF, in areas with a good dealership they were moderately popular
when they were new and only the hydraulics have a less than good
reputation. Here they all went to Mexico.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"> Grant Brians -
Hollister,California farmer of vegetables, edible flowers, herbs,
etc.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/24/2019 6:53 PM, Indiana Robinson
wrote:<br>
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<div>Cecil: I'm sure you are right... This 1155 probably came
from about 3 or 4 states west of here. My dealer friend made
his fortune buying tractors and combines and other equipment
farther west and bringing them back here to sell. He also
deals in some local stuff but most of the stuff comes from his
trips west because so much good stuff here sells too high for
a good level of profit. When Scott bought this tractor he was
not around because he was busy getting ready to hit the road
the next morning for a trip west for a couple of large
auctions. He has been hauling stuff back here to sell for as
long as I have known him and that has been a long time.</div>
<div>When Diana and I travelled west then to the north-east last
summer I was reminded of just how different farming is at
different locations around the country. We had been travelling
south and east for a number of years before that. Farmers do
have a lot in common no matter where they are (especially old
tractors) but local differences can be pretty wide (and very
interesting) like different soil types, levels of rainfall and
when, erosion concerns etc. I suspect that you would be very
surprised (because I have long been surprised) at how much
moldboard plowing is still done here in Central Indiana and
especially in Rush County, the next county east of me.</div>
<div>I used to do some no-till but I don't see a lot of no-till
around me. Here they started switching to no-till but then
moved to mulch-till and the use of speciality finishing tools
that are kind of a mix of tools all in one.</div>
<div>Field tile drainage is really bigger than ever here in
recent years and I can't really recall the last time I got
stuck doing field work. A seed corn and food grade corn
operation about 2 miles from me just tiled a farm nearby and
they ran tile (plastic) lines about 60 feet apart all over
several fields they recently acquired. They have their own
tile plow and the tile is reasonable in cost.</div>
<div>I did get stuck with a golf cart this week but I should
have been in a boat. :-)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Spencer: Son Scott is our youngest, our baby...He hates
when we say that. :-) He is 46.</div>
<div>Before I bought my Deere 4020 years ago I almost bought a
806. It was quite nice and the price was right but it was just
so dang loud running. Not exhaust noise, compression
hammering... I finally walked away from it. Everybody kept
telling me that it was normal for them but I just didn't like
the sound of it.</div>
<div>I never regretted the 4020.<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 7:39
PM Tyler Juranek <<a href="mailto:tylerpolkaman@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">tylerpolkaman@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hey
Spencer and all,<br>
Believe it or not, dad bought a 966 here recently. Acording to
the<br>
serial number, it was one that came out of the factory with a
narrow<br>
front.<br>
He bought it with a wide front, but found a good narrow front
to put back on it.<br>
He wants to have it all painted up and all that crap that his
son<br>
doesn't care much about. :) Lol.<br>
The mechanical work has all been done I think. That is what
matters<br>
most to me. I care more about mechanicals and tires, not about
the<br>
paint jobs.<br>
And Spencer, when it comes to my father, everything is for
sale...<br>
Tyler Juranek<br>
IA<br>
<br>
On 2/24/19, Spencer Yost <<a
href="mailto:spencer@rdfarms.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">spencer@rdfarms.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> I am not sure of the age of your son Scott, it sounds
like we must be pretty<br>
> close in age. When I think big tractors I think of those
Massey’s too. More<br>
> so, I think of the “six” series Farmall and IH tractors.
Like the 706 and<br>
> 966. I still keep an eye out for them. It’s a pipe
dream, I never will own<br>
> one. Recently I saw this on craigslist:<br>
><br>
> <a
href="https://greensboro.craigslist.org/grd/d/coats-ih-706-tractor-plow-and-disk/6818930052.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://greensboro.craigslist.org/grd/d/coats-ih-706-tractor-plow-and-disk/6818930052.html</a><br>
><br>
> If I was stupid rich or just plain stupid I would buy
it. On my puny 15<br>
> acres I don’t even have enough room to turn it...<br>
><br>
> Spencer Yost<br>
><br>
>> On Feb 24, 2019, at 10:33 AM, Indiana Robinson <<a
href="mailto:robinson46176@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">robinson46176@gmail.com</a>><br>
>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> Son Scott did buy the MF 1155. I figured that he
would. He has wanted one<br>
>> for too long and this one was in too good of general
condition for him to<br>
>> pass it up. He had asked me to go with him when he
first looked at it when<br>
>> there was no one around. It was sitting on the lot of
a dealer I have<br>
>> bought stuff from for a very long time. Not constant
purchases and not big<br>
>> stuff. I never farmed very big, couple of hundred
acres most of the time.<br>
>> The farm is a lifestyle thing, I made most of my
income from other<br>
>> enterprises. Still it takes a lot of equipment to do
the job. Over the<br>
>> years I bought a couple of combines from him, a 20
something foot wide<br>
>> harrogator, a wider set of wings for my big disk,
field sprayer etc.<br>
>> Several years ago we bought a Vermeer round baler
from him. He always<br>
>> treated me well. When I started dealing with him he
was a small<br>
>> independent dealership and a farmer like a lot of
other small dealers<br>
>> were. Today he and his sons have a huge operation
with one huge building<br>
>> that is absolutely full of classic tractors that are
not for sale. Over<br>
>> the years he has bought most of the farms that
surround him and he now has<br>
>> his own system of private roads from one to another.
We became business<br>
>> friends over those years and I was always impressed
that when I walked in<br>
>> he always treated me the same as if I was one of the
biggest farmers in<br>
>> the state. That is the way you should do business.<br>
>> Anywho... Scott had his mind mostly made up but
wanted me to go along to<br>
>> help check it over carefully with it running and him
driving it to check<br>
>> each function. We studied it pretty carefully for
maybe 2 hours or more<br>
>> and if anything had popped up he would have backed
away but he was<br>
>> confident enough that we went in a semi with a
low-boy. I had to meet him<br>
>> at a local shopping center because it is pretty tough
to get even a 40'<br>
>> trailer in to this farm and this was a 52' trailer.<br>
>> Everything seemed OK and they were willing to drop
the price $500. He<br>
>> asked them to pop the duals off and load them on the
truck.<br>
>> Kind of a funny bit of irony here... They have large
industrial battery<br>
>> electric impact wrenches so they don't have to drag
air hoses around.<br>
>> Worked really great but to get the duals off they had
to jack the tractor<br>
>> up a little. Yep, pneumatic jack and an air hose
dragged out to the apron<br>
>> where the tractor was sitting. :-)<br>
>> It all went well, of course Scott loads and hauls big
stuff almost daily,<br>
>> sometimes several times a day. He spends more time
behind a desk these<br>
>> days but he is still on job sites most days.<br>
>> The 1155 is quite wide. It has power adjust (spin
out) rear wheels but<br>
>> also wide slide out axles. He is considering cutting
down the axles some<br>
>> so the don't stick past the wheels. Thinks it might
save some doorways.<br>
>> The duals are clamp on and don't use the axles. I
doubt he will ever use<br>
>> the duals.<br>
>> I have a little Case VAC that has the wide axle
option and I'm still<br>
>> considering chopping those... (shrug)<br>
>> We have 3 ways to get to the farm here, none of them
semi friendly. :-)<br>
>> Coming in from the north requires going through an
oddball 20' tall<br>
>> rail-road underpass that was built long long ago as a
bridge over a fair<br>
>> sized creek and then back in about the 1920's people
started driving<br>
>> around one side of it in dry weather on a gravel bar.
It wasn't even a<br>
>> road then. Later a heavy one lane "U" shaped concrete
"shelf" was poured<br>
>> around there for traffic. Scott comes through there
fairly often with a<br>
>> tri-axle dump truck towing a tri-axle trailer with a
backhoe/loader or<br>
>> maybe a good sized excavator but it is not suited for
a semi at all. The<br>
>> other two directions are only slightly better due to
utility poles in too<br>
>> close to the corners and narrow culverts. Scott
considered parking on the<br>
>> wider road and unloading the tractor and me driving
it home but then we<br>
>> would still have had to deal with the duals and it
was a cold day. :-)<br>
>> He managed to get the longer trailer "buttoned" past
the corners with only<br>
>> minimal damage to the road ditches which were about
like quicksand.<br>
>> He has already been working on the 1155 for several
days now off and on. I<br>
>> can about guarantee you that the first thing he did
was rework all of the<br>
>> wiring. I noticed yesterday that he has the hood off
and I think the<br>
>> whole exhaust system. It had some minor exhaust
leakage where the manifold<br>
>> mounts to the heads and I know that he ordered a
batch of gaskets for it.<br>
>> I know that he was planning on putting some money in
it trying to get<br>
>> everything just right.<br>
>> It is important to understand here that while this
tractor will not be an<br>
>> actual "trailer queen" this pretty much falls under
the heading of "a toy<br>
>> he always wanted" like his Harley or his 4 wheeler
and not a tractor to<br>
>> farm with productively. He works very hard and makes
very good money and<br>
>> he plans his fun stuff too. I am not sure of the
value of this tractor,<br>
>> the big tractors (this is 140 HP and about 20,000
pounds ballasted) have<br>
>> never been on my wish list so I have not followed
them. The 10 to 60 HP<br>
>> tractors are my choice and I like the smaller ones
more all of the time<br>
>> like my Cub, Pony, VAC, Allis C etc.<br>
>> I don't guess he would mind me saying that he paid
$7,000 for it. It's a<br>
>> nice tractor and when he asked me I told him that if
he didn't like it<br>
>> after he bought it or something failed badly he could
probably at least<br>
>> part it out for more than that...<br>
>> I'll have to see if I can convince him to take it to
Portland. Then if he<br>
>> uses the semi he can haul a couple more for me. :-)
:-) :-)<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> .<br>
>><br>
>> --<br>
>> --<br>
>><br>
>> Francis Robinson<br>
>> aka "farmer"<br>
>> Central Indiana USA<br>
>> <a href="mailto:robinson46176@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">robinson46176@gmail.com</a><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
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<br>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>-- <br>
<br>
Francis Robinson<br>
aka "farmer"<br>
Central Indiana USA<br>
<a href="mailto:robinson46176@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">robinson46176@gmail.com</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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