In this episode host Aaron Fintel sits down with 4 other used equipment managers from across the U.S. during the Moving Iron Summit held Sept 6-7 in Nashville.
Aaron is joined by Brent Bowen with AHW in Illinois, Brad Crist with Shoppa’s in Texas, Bryant Roberson of Quality Equipment in the Carolinas and Matt Housel from Wade Inc. in Mississippi.
The get the conversation going with each sharing how the used equipment market is in each of their regions.
Full Transcript
Kim Schmidt:
Hi, I'm Kim Schmidt, executive editor of Farm Equipment. Welcome to Farm Equipment's Used Equipment Remarketing Roadmaps podcast. In this episode, host Aaron Fintel sits down with four other used equipment managers from across the US during the Moving Iron Summit, held September 6th and 7th in Nashville. Aaron is joined by Brent Bowen with AHW in Illinois, Brad Crist with Shoppa's in Texas, Bryant Roberson of Quality Equipment in the Carolinas, and Matt Hussel from Wade Inc., in Mississippi. Let's jump in as the group shares how the used equipment market is in each of their regions.
Aaron Fintel:
The boss turned me loose with the microphone on this deal because it's his big shin dig and he's busy. So I am Aaron without Casey, and joining me today I have Brent Bowen with AHW out of Illinois, Brad Crist with Shopa's or Shoppa's?
Brad Crist:
Shoppa's.
Aaron Fintel:
Shoppa's. I always say Shopa's. Out of Shoppa's in South Texas. Bryant Roberson from Quality Equipment in the Carolinas, and Matt Hussel from Wade in Mississippi and myself out of 21st in Nebraska, Colorado where it never rains. So we're here at the summit guys, how are you doing?
Brent Bowen:
Real good.
Brad Crist:
Good to be here. Good to be here.
Aaron Fintel:
Right on.
Matt Hussel:
Definitely good to be here.
Aaron Fintel:
Right on. We got a nice little mix here from scattered about. We got oceans, gulfs, mountains, all represented. Here we go. And that dude that has a black dirt over there on the far side of the table.
Brent Bowen:
Yeah, just stay for the night.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah, how was your corn. That was so bad. We only hit 250 this year. Yeah.
Matt Hussel:
Only 250.
Aaron Fintel:
It didn't rain every other Monday. Just Wednesday.
Bryant Roberson:
It's kind of accurate.
Aaron Fintel:
So Bryant, we'll start with you over there in God's country.
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
What's going on in your part of the world man?
Bryant Roberson:
Getting combines ready to go. We're going to have corn, there was some corn actually coming out central Illinois, right out of Springfield, Illinois last Thursday, which is the earliest I think I've ever seen corn harvested in Illinois. But as a whole, I would say we're still three weeks we'll be going in corn. Beans are way behind.
Aaron Fintel:
Really?
Bryant Roberson:
We just have a fantastic looking bean crop and it's not dropped one leaf yet, so we're just long way to go there.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
We'll get most of the corn done before we ever get into beans.
Aaron Fintel:
Does most of the corn there come out and go in the dryer versus field dry?
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah, it's, very little will be field dry. That's very tail end of our season will be field dry corn. But almost all of it'll go into the dryers. Figure, what's the ... September in 10 days? The elevators will start half price trying to get the systems up and running. That'll be kind of a trigger. It's always right there that second week of September we start nosing around but.
Aaron Fintel:
Getting new crop flowing in. Little incentive.
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
I gotcha. What's kind of hot besides everything? Everything, S130s, can't keep them on the wall.
Bryant Roberson:
Yep. I tell you one thing that surprised the heck out of me in the last 30 days, was 600 series auger heads, specifically 630s. Not that there's any of them left in Illinois, but could not believe what I saw on some auctions in last, literally all last month, 630 auger heads that we were trading around two years ago for, $75 to $8,500 bringing, damn near $30 was just ... And one after the other, after the other. It was incredible. But heads, heads have been really hot. Tractors that goes without saying. But the surprise to me was the heads. It wasn't a total surprise, but the heads.
Aaron Fintel:
I've kind of noticed that too. And if you gather guys even like 10 and 11, 600 series corn heads, they were like dead and gone. And if it's not a '14, I don't want it now, it's like, do you have an eight? Sitting down in the trees anywhere? And you're right, three, four years ago we'd have 10 in that 630F be begging each other, will you give me five please?
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
It's got to go and now it's worth three times that.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah.
Aaron Fintel:
God bless the guy that bought them all and put them in a shed, right.
Bryant Roberson:
Fact.
Brad Crist:
Is that because, and I don't like, we don't do any beans up where we're at, or any flex heads or anything, but is that because of availability through Deere? They backed them up or?
Bryant Roberson:
On those older auger heads I think the demand is export driven. But there is still some operations where there, it's incredible to me how many operations have added a combine. And, now we got to have something to put on the front of it and it's just never saw that before, not to this extent. And I think it's mostly export driven, but there's other factors there, second combines that, on operations that never had them and they got to have something to put, there's no flex scrapers, right?
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah, exactly.
Bryant Roberson:
They'll push anything at this point. So.
Aaron Fintel:
Yep. Will it cut that plant and put it in the feeder house?
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
I'll take it.
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Matt Hussel:
We've got plenty of rigid drapers if you need them.
Bryant Roberson:
Nope. Negative.
Aaron Fintel:
Negative, ghost rider.
Bryant Roberson:
Nope. Those will be going up. Isn't this the last year you can order a rigid draper?
Matt Hussel:
Yes.
Brent Bowen:
And those are, well they're hot for you too, aren't they?
Brad Crist:
Yeah. Same thing with Matt, just cutting rice.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brent Bowen:
And we use them for wheat. But do you guys typically run steel fingers?
Brad Crist:
Yes, we do.
Matt Hussel:
Yeah, it just depends on the grower. Sometimes they're plastic, sometimes they're steel.
Aaron Fintel:
Gotcha. Gotcha. But what are you seeing Brad?
Brad Crist:
Well I tell you, I just want to slap Brent, great bean crop, you know beautiful corn, it was a train wreck this year in south Texas. We were dry. I mean the chickens were burping dust. It was so dry where we're at, and corn yields, it was not uncommon to be 30 to 50, 60 bushel corn.
Aaron Fintel:
Damn.
Brad Crist:
Cotton, cotton was anywhere from three quarter a bail to bail and a quarter.
Aaron Fintel:
Gotcha.
Brad Crist:
Our best cotton is in the field right now and now it decides to rain. So we're seeing some of our irrigated cotton, looks like it's going to get zeroed out, but we're all but done with harvest. The rice is out, the corn is out, milo's out. So we're pretty well done. And you know you asked Brent what's hot? And I mean we can all echo the same thing, but for us right now, the big thing is pickers, we were able to finish so early. So moving a lot back to the northeast of us through the delta, through Georgia. And then that export market on cotton pickers is really, really good right now too. And not so much to China, and Matt, you might talk on this a little bit, but we're getting a lot of South America, Brazil ...
Matt Hussel:
Oh, okay.
Brad Crist:
... talk right now on pickers.
Aaron Fintel:
Gotcha.
Brad Crist:
So that's what I'd say is the hot button for us right now.
Aaron Fintel:
Gotcha.
Brad Crist:
That might be a little bit different than everybody else just for our location.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brad Crist:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brent Bowen:
I'm right there with Brad on the Brazil market. I mean we get a lot of calls, weekly calls. Do you have pickers? No, we do not have pickers. And the back up of pickers too, with us is going to affect our harvest because we hadn't got a lot of our pickers in.
Brad Crist:
Yeah, we were fortunate. We were early, like you were talking about under corn, Brent. We were early. We got our last pickers in July and they literally rolled out of the shop and went straight and started picking. So we were fortunate our crop is early so we're going to be able to get some of those back east. What's interesting about that Brazil market to me is they're not calling on 9996 basket pickers.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brad Crist:
They want CP770's.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah.
Brad Crist:
I mean it is a totally different mindset.
Matt Hussel:
2021 model pickers.
Brad Crist:
That's what they want. Yeah. I mean hey I've got a 14 mile, 7760, they're not interested.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brent Bowen:
Yeah. And I mean they've basically skipped all the models and gone like '17, '18, '19, '20, '21 models.
Matt Hussel:
9996 all the way up.
Brad Crist:
That's it. Yeah. Just jumped to it.
Brent Bowen:
Yeah, I mean they just skipped right over top of it.
Brad Crist:
And you know guys may see this, we're not in a huge huge combine area, but you guys may see this in combines, but at some point we're looking at 7760 cotton pickers.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brad Crist:
Who buys those pickers anymore? Because China won't export them anymore. Brazil is showing us they want CPs. So where do you go with a machine like that? And go ahead Aaron.
Aaron Fintel:
The same place you go with choppers of that era.
Brad Crist:
Perfect example. Combines you run, you can run a combine all the way down to a 55 round back and get rid of the damn thing. But you get into choppers, pickers, strippers, you get three series out and that's it.
Brent Bowen:
It's it.
Aaron Fintel:
You can't, there aren't, look at near and dear to my heart, 5830 John Deere chopper. You get one of those in, you better find a hobbyist that has a thick head like me who just has to have his own chopper or what do you do with it? Because the chopper wholesaler doesn't want it. You're not going to export it.
Brent Bowen:
At some point we're going to have to be at a price point that can cover that small guy, like you said the hobby farmer 3, 400 acre guy that normally traditionally wouldn't be looking at one of those pickers, and then eventually even past that, we're going to have to look at the component value.
Aaron Fintel:
And that's a good point Bryant. I've seen some sell, we had a sale down by us here two weeks ago and some 7760's were in it and they were bringing about $120,000.
Matt Hussel:
And I mean I've been thinking about that component value. Over the last two years is really kind of highlighted more of that than I think we ever would've thought. But not to echo back to cheap heads. I'm selling 635F heads for parts. You're taking, you need X part. Here's the whole thing.
Aaron Fintel:
Exactly.
Brent Bowen:
I don't care what you need. I've got extra floor, I've got real tubes.
Bryant Roberson:
But I think we're going to start, I predicted it I think a year ago I said I thought we were going to have those early 680s, we're going to get absorbed in the market simply because we couldn't get parts on major breakdowns for newer machines.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
And I think some of that happened. But I think what we'll see specifically to combines, I think we'll see those machines dispersed. I don't know when, but on a component level, even if it's into the export market, a lot of those parts will move over when we start talking about major components.
Aaron Fintel:
You're exactly right. And on top of that on this component thing. We are in ... I work out of our Bridgeport store, we have an Allstate [inaudible 00:10:29] parts right there in Bridgeport. Those guys have bought more equipment the last two years and paid up for it then I ever would've thought. Because of fire and damage, they've bought some 8Rs from us that it was like, that wasn't our trade value. They blew us out of the water. It's like ...
Matt Hussel:
For components?
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah. They're parting them.
Matt Hussel:
And I've run into that twice this summer out of my shop, out of the location I work in, on 9,020 series tees.
Aaron Fintel:
Yes.
Matt Hussel:
You can't get that back axle any ... There's one place in the country that's got it left and I mean you're paying to get it. So it stands to reason if you have one of those, a machine like that coming to inventory, what's to say that a guy that's got four of them already ...
Brent Bowen:
The engine, the axles. I mean ...
Matt Hussel:
The engines. The axles. It's parts are worth more than the sum total of its pieces.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah, you got a guy with a hundred thousand hectares in Western Ukraine.
Matt Hussel:
Yeah.
Aaron Fintel:
Hell yes he'll buy that.
Matt Hussel:
And set it in the corner.
Aaron Fintel:
It's worth that for parts all day because when in the hell can he find it? Can he get it?
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Brent Bowen:
Well see, just like with Brad, myself and Matt, I mean look at some of these 7760s I mean they're getting some hours on them.
Aaron Fintel:
Oh yeah.
Brent Bowen:
I mean we're looking at $5,000, $6,000 machines coming in and the value of the components is worth more than what the machine is to a consumer.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah.
Brent Bowen:
Right now.
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Brad Crist:
Well you have somebody trash some heads, it's got some value.
Brent Bowen:
The six heads, the power drive in the rear, the transmission, the engine and in some parts the cab, because the first thing that's going to burn ... If you get a fire up underneath the cab, cab's going to burn.
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Brent Bowen:
You can remove the cab, put it on another machine and haul tape.
Bryant Roberson:
No, I think we're going to see more of that. I think we're going to ... That stuff that's in that dead space, I think we're going to ... Because there's a lot of those machines out there.
Brad Crist:
Oh yeah. Well and on your point guys having, added a second combine, that's why.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah.
Brad Crist:
Because they had their 670 sitting in the shed that was a '14 that they bought new in '14 and then in '15 they think their combine's worth 200 and ooh, that one on that auction yard brought 90.
Bryant Roberson:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
Why wouldn't we buy a second combine?
Bryant Roberson:
We'll just buy another one.
Aaron Fintel:
And God bless them. Now that combine's worth 120. So [inaudible 00:12:55].
Brent Bowen:
I'll tell you one thing I'm seeing too, when it comes to that backup combine in our area, if you have a small guy that's probably farming 1500 acres or so, has a combine, has engine fire in it, engine goes out, insurance pays for it. That's in the middle of harvest.
Matt Hussel:
Yeah.
Brent Bowen:
He'll go ahead and upgrade a machine and rather than get rid of that machine, salvage it out, he'll go and put the motor on it. Say, Hey, I'm going to use it as my backup. I know the machine, I know [inaudible 00:13:20] rest of the machine.
Brad Crist:
We've seen that a lot.
Bryant Roberson:
That's a little different in my zip code. Those happen, the same deal happens. But those wind up coming down to the boot hill to salvage yards. That would be rare for us.
Brent Bowen:
But in my territory, my territory is a cross between Brad Christ and Matt Hussel. Not me and you.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah. Oh, it's a zip code thing. There's no question about it.
Brent Bowen:
I mean Matt's got all those Mississippi beauty queens down there.
Matt Hussel:
That's Right.
Aaron Fintel:
So Bryant, what are you seeing down in your country?
Bryant Roberson:
All right. Right now we're in full swinging corn harvest right now, we've been picking about two weeks. I would love to say that we were having a spectacular year like Mr. Bowen, but I mean we're averaging ... One of my farmers told me the other day, on one side of the road, he was picking 50 bushels of corn on the other side of the road. He was picking 180.
Matt Hussel:
Damn.
Bryant Roberson:
And it was just because the road separated the rain shower. I've got one customer I was talking to a while back, they had five weeks where they only saw seven tenths of inch. Cotton's a complete disaster in that area. They've got some cotton that's 24, 36 inches, flowering out the top. I mean we all know what that's going to do. It's not, it's just not going to happen. Corn, they mowed down a bunch of corn in certain areas, but it seemed like it was very sporadic, almost like a super eight pattern.
Aaron Fintel:
Gotcha.
Bryant Roberson:
You go over here 10 miles, and be a complete disaster and a few more miles over. Some guys have been really, they've been really elated about what the yields are. I had a few that they were expecting, 50, 60 bushels that came out 110, 120. Which isn't spectacular, but at the same time it's putting you closer to the goal. Our tobacco is looking good. It's in full harvest right now. Peanuts, I think you're going to see some guys start digging probably two, three weeks.
Soybeans, we've got some guys that are combining some early soybeans right now. Some beans look really good. Some of the early beans look really good. Some of them are short. I talked to one guy, he had some cotton that they completely insuranced out because there was nothing there, had no stand. They tilled it in planted beans, he's probably about 5'9", 5'10", and he said that the beans were up to his shoulders right now. I mean that's really good.
I think our challenges, I think we just touched on it. I think my challenge is the same as theirs. It's these cotton pickers concern me, greatly. The head availabilities. We've had a lot of guys looking for some auger heads, for some drapers. They're not out there, you're not going to find them. Combines, we've had a few guys that they wanted different combines to what we had. They're trying to kind of stepping back from the eights and nines trying to go into sevens and sixes and it's just, they're not out there so far as a low hour machine.
Kim Schmidt:
We'll get back to the conversation in a minute. But I first wanted to invite you to join us virtually this December 8th and 9th for the AG equipment intelligence executive briefing. To learn more and to register, visit agequipmentintelligence.com/executivebriefing. Now back to Aaron.
Aaron Fintel:
What's hot, what's not?
Bryant Roberson:
What's hot [inaudible 00:16:40].
Aaron Fintel:
Besides everything and nothing.
Bryant Roberson:
If you can put your hands on it, you can sell it.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
We've sold a lot of stuff I didn't feel like we would sell too fast. I've had some 9,000 hour, 10,000 hour articulants.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah.
Bryant Roberson:
That were 17 years old bringing $80, $90,000. I mean that's just unheard of.
Aaron Fintel:
Absolutely.
Bryant Roberson:
And to your add to Brent, I can already hear you coming. They're selling them tractors. I could already hear the huffing, but I think anything's hot right now. You've got the audience right now, at any time we have a strong audience.
Brad Crist:
Right.
Matt Hussel:
I'll second that. Just some machines that with engines that we would've said three years ago never sell, don't want it. Toxic.
Aaron Fintel:
Yep.
Matt Hussel:
Shoot. They just sell.
Aaron Fintel:
Oh yeah.
Matt Hussel:
I just can't fathom. We brought in, and this is to circle back around, it seems like now with commodity prices and then this availability situation, there is just stuff coming out of the woodwork that I didn't think still existed where I'm [inaudible 00:17:46] and it's not good stuff. You know what I mean? And it's still going somewhere else. That's what, I was scared to death that we'd just be hung with it. But it's selling.
Bryant Roberson:
This is also the year. If a farmer wants to get rid of a piece of equipment, there is a buyer somewhere out there.
Aaron Fintel:
Oh absolutely.
Bryant Roberson:
I mean this is a seller's market right now. I mean it's not a buyer's market, it's definitely a seller's market.
Aaron Fintel:
And I'm not sure it matters what color.
Brad Crist:
No, it doesn't.
Aaron Fintel:
And that's, doing what I do. I have nothing to do with the new side at all until there's a trade.
Matt Hussel:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
So in my world it's all used all the time. I don't care what the color is. And Brent and I were talking about this last night. That's all I've done all year.
Matt Hussel:
Yeah.
Aaron Fintel:
I have talked to red dealers, AG code dealers, Klaus dealers. Way more than any of you guys all year.
Matt Hussel:
Yeah.
Bryant Roberson:
Really? That's right.
Matt Hussel:
Other than we reach out to each other and be like, I would love to, but I can't. Are you hiring? I'll sell you that tractor and then I need a job.
Brent Bowen:
And I don't know if it's any different for y'all, but the one thing I have noticed at the first part of the pandemic, if there was a green tractor on a red yard, you could get it. But now-
Aaron Fintel:
Now they won't let it go. They want it too.
Brent Bowen:
They want it too.
Brad Crist:
And they want your red tractor.
Aaron Fintel:
Well you heard what David said yesterday.
Brent Bowen:
Yeah, we don't have problem getting rid of the green ones.
Brad Crist:
And David's close enough to us close enough, but far enough away. We work together a lot and hey, I got this. I see you have that. Let's swap. He goes, Man, we sold that two days ago.
Bryant Roberson:
Yup.
Brad Crist:
Great. That's not helping.
Brent Bowen:
That has really tightened up. So that really indicates how this markets moving
Brad Crist:
The swaps used to be ... Aaron, we've joked about this in the past. All of us, we used to just find the off color dealer that was just far enough away and "Hey, I got this. Let's make a trade."
Aaron Fintel:
Absolutely
Brad Crist:
[inaudible 00:19:36] for you. Split the freight now those days are over.
Aaron Fintel:
Oh, I think we got some quotes on that.
Brad Crist:
You don't want quotes on that. Don't forget that part.
Brent Bowen:
And how I bring it up to some of these dealers too is you call a dealer up, I really need it. I don't want them to know I really need it, but I'm like, "Hey, I can trade you this piece. And you can sell the parts to it. You can sell the service to it. I can put something in your territory where you're not feeding your competition."
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brent Bowen:
A lot of times they'll be like, "Oh, well I just thought about that. Yeah. Let's do it."
Aaron Fintel:
A little. Just that reminder like-
Brent Bowen:
Just that little reminder, Hey I-
Aaron Fintel:
There's a reason we've always done these trades.
Brent Bowen:
There's a reason why we've always done these trades.
Aaron Fintel:
You're still getting that red thing. Just don't get in our mind in here.
Brad Crist:
For us, we've just focused on the management side from the top down on the sales force. That market share is incredibly important. Someone used quality used in our AOR is incredibly important. It's me and my boss. Leave not green paint to us.
Aaron Fintel:
Yup.
Brad Crist:
And you know guys, focus on what we know.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah.
Brad Crist:
If David was sitting here, he'd say the same thing but.
Aaron Fintel:
Oh yeah.
Bryant Roberson:
He's also going to sell the green one too. Because they kind of just sell.
Brent Bowen:
You notice with Brent in the room he looks at us, he's like quality tractors. Keep the quality tractors in our territory.
Bryant Roberson:
It's almost insulting. I mean, it really is.
Brent Bowen:
Quality. Supposed to come to quality
Aaron Fintel:
Oh shit. Well Matt, What's going on in your country my man?
Matt Hussel:
Well we are in harvest. Corn harvests in some areas it's already over with. Most of it has getting started. Our irrigated corn looks better than expected. But our non irrigated is struggling. Our bean harvest, we're having a lot of mold on some beans. A lot of things that are damaged. Damaged beans.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Matt Hussel:
Because about probably three weeks ago we got about 6, 8, 10 days worth of rain. So that's kind of hurt our bean crop, our cotton crop. It needs sunshine, needs a little wet feet. Brad will tell you the same thing Brian tell you the same thing. If you get multiple days of rain and cloud cover, that's the worst thing ever on cotton crop.
Aaron Fintel:
Right? Yep.
Matt Hussel:
It'll hurt it, hurt it, hurt it. Rice is underway. I mean it looks better than average I've been told. And our sweet potatoes, they getting started [inaudible 00:22:06]. Just like the sweet potatoes. You don't need wet ground.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah.
Matt Hussel:
Because they were right in the ground.
Bryant Roberson:
Right.
Matt Hussel:
But what's hot and what's not, I mean I'm kind of like Bryant about anything you have is it can be hot.
Aaron Fintel:
Sure.
Matt Hussel:
Of course, I mean we always got combines to sell. We got a few combines when they sell and a few headers.
Brent Bowen:
But they also have rice machines?
Aaron Fintel:
That's exactly right.
Matt Hussel:
Well there's nothing wrong with the rice machine.
Bryant Roberson:
Hey.
Aaron Fintel:
Variable stream rotor.
Bryant Roberson:
Let me tell you, Matt, you preach it. I'll turn page is there anything wrong that machine?
Matt Hussel:
There ain't nothing wrong with a rice machine.
Aaron Fintel:
No man.
Matt Hussel:
Hey
Bryant Roberson:
It's got all that stainless in it.
Matt Hussel:
[inaudible 00:22:31] extended wear that's good.
Brent Bowen:
[inaudible 00:22:31] agree to disagree.
Aaron Fintel:
You know what, I come from the red world originally and we used to do that because it was the same damn combine, except for spiked rasp bars other than everything was stainless.
Bryant Roberson:
Well guys, I'm going to tell you, this is going to go back a long ways, but you all remember this. I saw in York, Nebraska a '97 50 that had a million bushels of corn go through it. And there was more wear on that machine than I've ever seen on the rice combine.
Aaron Fintel:
Oh I believe it. I believe it in a heartbeat.
Brent Bowen:
But what we have to remember is it doesn't matter what our opinion in this room is.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah. Our customers.
Brent Bowen:
It's the customers. It's the customer opinion. Personally, I've traveled around enough, I'd have no issue with a rice machine. I'd sell a rice machine in a heartbeat.
Aaron Fintel:
Absolutely.
Brent Bowen:
But the customer perception of a rice machine is not at that. Our guys sit down and look at it and they automatically associate that with just travesty.
Bryant Roberson:
Do you think that's changing though? Because of course that's what we do. And I mean my corn guys, I order rice machines so I can sell locally.
Brent Bowen:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
But do you think that perspective's changing a little bit.
Aaron Fintel:
I think as far as, is that a problem machine, I don't think that's there anymore. And if it wasn't for that rotor difference that's what I run into.
Bryant Roberson:
[inaudible 00:24:04].
Aaron Fintel:
Guys, guys, honestly-
Brad Crist:
They can't it won't work.
Aaron Fintel:
They honestly don't care that it was in rice that's a nonissue. Because they know a lot of that shits heavier duty.
Bryant Roberson:
Absolutely. Extremely heavy duty.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah. It's the rotor that's it.
Bryant Roberson:
Yep, it just will not work.
Aaron Fintel:
That we have.
Bryant Roberson:
What is the issue you run
Brad Crist:
Into? We have trouble with it in corn. That's what surprises me. That you order it for corn machines.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah. It's corn
Brad Crist:
Cracking corn or too aggressive?
Bryant Roberson:
Yes.
Aaron Fintel:
Cracking and capacity, limiting.
Bryant Roberson:
I just going to say the throughput is greatly diminished.
Brad Crist:
But guys, think about your corn yields versus my corn yields.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
There's a big difference.
Brad Crist:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah. T.
Brad Crist:
Here's a big difference.
Matt Hussel:
A lot of big difference.
Brent Bowen:
But I think if there was a positive to all of this, price point at auctions has affected the perception a little bit too.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brent Bowen:
These guys will jump on a combine for a lot cheaper.
Aaron Fintel:
Well, and you guys have seen this through the years. I deal with it constantly. Some of you don't deal with it as much, but the custom harvester combine for the longest that and it's gone in waves. Yeah. I can remember when I was a kid. Ooh, that's a harvester machine.
Brent Bowen:
You don't want that.
Aaron Fintel:
Don't touch that one.
Brent Bowen:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
Then there became the ... I want to call it around 2000 to '10. It was kind of, I really like to have that harvester machine because those guys take care of shit.
Brent Bowen:
Yeah.
Aaron Fintel:
Where did that come from. That's because they all started listening to us going, calm down. They fix it when it's broke. That thing's probably in better shape than Bob neighbor farmer's combine.
Bryant Roberson:
We run into that.
Brent Bowen:
If it's not running, they're not making money.
Aaron Fintel:
That's exactly right.
Bryant Roberson:
We had that stigma in the I states on commercial sprayers.
Brad Crist:
Oh yes.
Bryant Roberson:
And I mean that was huge.
Brad Crist:
Bad.
Bryant Roberson:
And don't get me wrong, there's outliers, but as a whole, if it's not turning and it's not earning it.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
So those commercial sprayers, I mean they've had more maintenance on them than farmer machines. A lot of the time. They might cosmetically be a little blighted, but it'll run.
Aaron Fintel:
Cosmetically they don't look as good. But I promise you the finals, the engine, the hydro, all that shit's in way better shape ...
Bryant Roberson:
The majority of the time.
Brad Crist:
... than the farmer because they bring it in every winter and say yes.
Brent Bowen:
And most of them are-
Brad Crist:
Not. How much, what can we do for 10?
Brent Bowen:
Fixed.
Aaron Fintel:
Fix it.
Bryant Roberson:
Yup.
Brent Bowen:
And most of them have had consistent operators [inaudible 00:26:16].
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Brent Bowen:
Hopefully.
Bryant Roberson:
With the the commercial sprayers, that operator thing, that for us is a little more location to location. But as a general rule, those commercial sprayer ... And then the tightening up of the sprayer supply has really just kind of zapped all those up to.
Brent Bowen:
Oh yeah.
Bryant Roberson:
You know.
Brad Crist:
If you have an 8,000 hour, 49, 30 right now, you could sell it in 20 days.
Bryant Roberson:
I sold a lot of them this year. 49 forties with [inaudible 00:26:43].
Aaron Fintel:
And I don't know that I would waste the torch gas [inaudible 00:26:45].
Brad Crist:
Agreed.
Aaron Fintel:
I'd sell it.
Brad Crist:
But that's my number one selling tool. Guy said, "Man, I found this sprayer in Illinois." I said, "Bet you did. It's a commercial applicator. Good luck." Now I've got this one over here. May have been in the mud a little bit, but ... So, yeah.
Bryant Roberson:
And don't get me wrong. If we get-
Aaron Fintel:
This one was born in the Gulf, it knows how to act, it's used to this salt air.
Bryant Roberson:
If we get 10 commercial machines in, and I'm not talking about the super high hour combo units, but if we just get your standard post machine in, if we get 10 of them in, there's one of them that you're going to go. But the rest of them with little basic recon and a little detailing.
Aaron Fintel:
I would even flip that for ours. Our course, our area is like 500 North to South and two 50 East to West. And where there's not a pivot, there's sage brush. So it's all or nothing. And that being the case, we have nutrient, we have cps, we got all the majors and that's really it. The sim plots. We don't have very much mom and pop co-op anymore. They're swallowed.
Bryant Roberson:
Theirs are getting very far between [inaudible 00:28:03].
Aaron Fintel:
And with that being the case, when you had more of the small asp, the farmer's co-op gets to 48, 30s. That was a bigger crapshoot I feel like than nutrient is bringing in 15.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah.
Aaron Fintel:
Nutrient bringing in 15, you're spot on. You're going to have one that is out [inaudible 00:28:27] machine and you're going to have 14 of them that are ...
Matt Hussel:
Hey that's work.
Aaron Fintel:
... 1500 recon. Here we go.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah, it'll work. But the mom and pops, it was-
Aaron Fintel:
It was either vacuumed out every night or never had the oil changed.
Bryant Roberson:
It kind of goes back. Those guys come out of the farming ... They were just farmers themselves and ...
Aaron Fintel:
Or the board. The board is all local farmers who are also our customers
Bryant Roberson:
In Illinois. It's FS and ...
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
... but again, they're just bringing in and fix the thing, but they got to answer to the board.
Aaron Fintel:
Yup.
Bryant Roberson:
So those got to make money.
Aaron Fintel:
Right.
Bryant Roberson:
They've got to cover acres. So.
Aaron Fintel:
Exactly.
Brad Crist:
I've used that as a selling point. It just about the same time that the combines, we get very few of those custom, but they have been around it. But for us it's the sprayers.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah.
Bryant Roberson:
That was almost to the time your timeline lines up with that almost identically.
Aaron Fintel:
Right. Yep. No, that's good stuff. Anything else, guys?
Brad Crist:
Been a good year for all of us, I think.
Bryant Roberson:
Yeah.
Brad Crist:
Yeah.
Aaron Fintel:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Brad Crist:
As long as you can get it, we can keep on rolling.
Brent Bowen:
That's it. I don't know if it was you, Aaron, or somebody said yesterday, we're not sure if we're going to go back to those 14, 15 days, but I'm going to tell you those were painful. And I don't want to be the dealer that's sitting there saying, "Golly, I wish I'd had liquidated these 400 hour 8Rs." [inaudible 00:29:53].
Aaron Fintel:
Exactly.
Brad Crist:
425,000. And so yeah, I mean, I don't know what this market's going to do. I mean, hearing some of these speakers, everybody's looks like it's really still positive, but ...
Aaron Fintel:
Oh yeah.
Brad Crist:
... but it'll be interesting. It will come back. We know it will. We've all done this long enough to know it will at some point.
Aaron Fintel:
Just hang on, write her down, write her up. Enjoy life at the peak where we're at.
Brent Bowen:
Yep.
Aaron Fintel:
That's it.
Brent Bowen:
Right.
Aaron Fintel:
All right, well thank you guys. Thanks for sitting down and we'll catch you next time.
Brad Crist:
Appreciate you.
Matt Hussel:
Thank you, sir.
Aaron Fintel:
Let's go move some iron.
Kim Schmidt:
Thanks to Aaron, Brent, Brad, Matt and Bryant for sharing their conversation with us. You can keep up on the latest industry news by registering online. To receive our free newsletters, visit www.farm-equipment.com for Casey and Aaron as well as our entire staff here at Farm Equipment. I'm Kim Schmidt. Thanks for listening.
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