Machinery Matters: Focus on reliability

With weekly harvesting year-round, and high-profile customers, including Woolworths, Coles, Dick Smith and fast food chains, the brothers have a high reliance on their equipment.

They first bought Case IH tractors in 2008, starting with a JX90 tractor. They now run a range of Case machines, including an additional JX90, two Maxxum 125 ROPS, a Maxxum 125 cab and a Puma 140.

The Fagans also have a 25th anniversary release Magnum 340, which contrasts in both size and age to their vintage Farmall Supa A 1948 model.

Ed Fagan said reliable machines and backup service were paramount to their business.

"When you have multiple machines and a large workforce, all you need is one breakdown and you can have 15 people standing around and it'll cost you a fortune," he said.

The Fagans employ anywhere from 15 to 45 people, depending on the season, and grow a wide range of products shipped and sold across Australia including baby spinach, iceberg lettuce, beetroot, onion, asparagus, broadacre wheat and canola, and even popcorn.

Mr Fagan said the farm's biggest challenge was meeting the demands of the consumer.

"Today's consumer is getting fussier, requiring food that is consistent every day of the year, and they don't want to pay more," he said.

A 24-TONNE Crop Mover chaser bin that is easy to pull and operate has proved its worth bringing in a range of grain crops on a Riverina, NSW, farm in the 2013 season.

Michael and Bernadette Agosta farm at Logie Brae, between Finley and Jerilderie, where they grow wheat, canola, peas and rice.

They have irrigation water allocation for their rice crop, gravity-fed from the Hume Dam.

When it came to harvesting the rice in 2013, Mr Agosta needed to upgrade from the locally-built Middleton Engineering 10-tonner they had used for about 10 years.

They decided on the 24-tonne Crop Mover from Coolamon Steelworks (CSW) and took delivery in February last year in time for the rice harvest.

"In the rice it was really good, very easy to pull, despite being such a heavy unit, even in wet conditions. We liked the fast unloading, and found it to be stable, with its wide track," he said.

In the rice they pulled the Crop Mover with a 131 kilowatt John Deere 7630, with skinny tyres for winter crop protection.

For the other grains, mainly for the wheat, they use the larger 169kW John Deere 8400. They harvest the crops with a John Deere S680 header.

CSW manufactures the chaser bins in a number of sizes - an 18 tonne Crop Chaser, the 24t Crop Mover, a 30t Crop Hauler, 36t Crop Carter and a triple-axle 50t Crop Carrier, which has front and rear self-steering.

All the bins have adjustable height delivery chutes and full length clean-out drop doors.

Three-metre wheel centres are standard as well as a roll-over tarpaulin.

THE second-hand machinery market is doing it tough, but an auction on Queensland's Darling Downs in early March attracted unexpected support and achieved a clearance of 96 per cent.

National Auctions and Solutions Company (NASCO) managing director Chris Goscomb said the auction of trucks and machinery at Dalby on March 5 drew a crowd of nearly 400 people, mostly farmers and dealers.

"I was a little bit dubious about what would happen, but the sale exceeded expectations," he said.

"We weren't expecting the prices we achieved.

"The market has been saturated and we are in the midst of a drought and I thought it would be tough on the day, but it was better than we thought."

At the Dalby sale, a 14H grader sold for $125,000, Caterpillar D7G side booms made to $60,000 and FTS crane trucks made in the mid-$40,000 range.

NASCO has another auction of second-hand commercial vehicles and machinery coming up at Biloela in Central Queensland on April 2.

"Not a bad opportunity if people are wanting a good, second-hand ute," Mr Goscomb said.