Phil and May Brothers Contracting discuss their John Deere 8000 Series forage harvester, highlighting its reliability and productivity for their contracting work. They explain how the equipment's technology and their relationship with the local dealership support their operation.
We started our contracting business 10 years ago.
When the business started, I was 15, Phil was 16.
We bought one machine and we've gone from there. This 8500 John Deere is two months old now. We've been very impressed with the reliability and the productivity out of it. It has a pretty big season, really. It's topping seven, eight months of the year.
The three main benefits that we are seeing from the machine is the reliability, the serviceability and the productivity.
It's pretty good on fuel, so this machine's the same horsepower as our previous machine and it's certainly a lot more productive. Litres per tonne an hour would be better than the previous model. It's so easy to work on. The comfort in the cab is just leaps and bounds ahead.
It's got a whole different design under the hood. Exactly what a mechanical service technician wants to see.
The technology in the John Deere is very superior. All of our tractors are running Autotrack saved us a lot of money. From past to pass, just from not overlapping, we run yield mapping on our John Deere combines. It's very good for our customers to see where their high yielding patches are in their paddocks. Dravid and Etheridge are our local John Deere dealership. We've been dealing with them for most of our career now. Yeah, they play a big part our business. The key for us is reliability. Once we're moving, we have to keep moving. If we do have breakdowns, we rely on the dealership to be out here pretty promptly and it's a massive thing for us. That's why we run John Deere gear.
