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Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies affecting new tractors are behind the continuing rise in popularity of the models. Particularly in the midwest, farmers are finding that 40-year-old tractors do the job with less trouble and expense.
Tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s are some of the hottest items in farm auctions across the Midwest these days — and it's not because they're antiques.
Cost-conscious farmers are looking for bargains, and tractors from that era are well-built and totally functional, and aren't as complicated or expensive to repair as more recent models that run on sophisticated software.
"It's a trend that's been building. It's been interesting in the last couple years, which have been difficult for ag, to see the trend accelerate," said Greg Peterson, the founder of Machinery Pete, a farm equipment data company in Rochester with a website and TV show.
Previously;
Reeducating Legislators on the Right to Repair (2019)
John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair (2018)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:29PM (7 children)
Why aren't they just using livestock (horses / oxen) still?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:38PM (5 children)
They can't read GPS data. They are difficult to automate. And per acre costs might actually be higher, definitely if you factor in the time spent.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:09PM (4 children)
Animals are great for smaller farms. You can train them to do exactly what you want to do, they are useful for other things, fun to be around, and they aren't that much slower for fields with a lot of rocks, turns, etc. Big straight-run farms like mine? Instead of 2 corn acres a day, mine and my neighbor's combine can do around 10 and over 20 acres an hour, respectively.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 10 2020, @12:22AM (3 children)
Fun to be around?! Not at all what my father and grandfather thought. Horses are a bit unpredictable and dangerous. Most of the time, yes, they're well behaved. But, you never know when the stupid things are going to spook and go nuts. If panicked badly enough, they will do crazy stuff like charge full speed into a brick wall (usually fatal), trample everyone who doesn't get out of the way fast enough, tear up a bunch of fence (and cover themselves in deep scratches if the fence is barb wire), and rear up and try to smash whatever is in front of them, and other destructive and injurious things.
Also got to keep them away from the cornfield. A horse or a cow that gets into a cornfield is going to eat the corn. The problem is not the loss of the corn. The problem is that corn is too rich for those animals. Their digestion can't handle it, and if they get the chance to eat their fill, and no one notices for a while, they'll die.
Driving a 1940s tractor without a cab all day long, working the fields, really sucks. But that's better than farming with a team of horses.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @12:57AM
I did both. Hell are farm equipment was mostly out of 1920. Bucking sleigh to bring the hay to the barn. House pull rake and side cutter that both worked by the wheels turning by the tractor. Hay chopper and saw that was powered by 12 inch belts on a pullley/pro was on side of 1950 international tractor same as on old stream tractors. We had 26acre farm with fruit trees too.
All worked very welll but slow
Did learn to drive at age 4
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @08:29AM (1 child)
Sounds like they used broken and not trained horses. When the horse sees you, other people, and its partner as companions in a herd, rather than an obstacle to be avoided, they react very differently. Plus draft animals are much colder than the much hotter riders, which makes them much harder to provoke and less likely to bolt in general. Sure the tractor is faster and you don't have to worry about hydrating it, resting it, feeding it, etc., while working but, as I said, it comes down to the particular size of the farm and the other uses you can get out of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @02:58AM
I was gonna say - a lot of it is the personality of the animal, and a lot of that is how they've been treated. A working plowhorse rearing? I never once saw a clydesdale rear up. But people who treat their work animals badly get bit and kicked; it's tit-for-tat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:50PM
Distribution Restricted Manure.