Time to Make Hay

The used baler market is affected by many things, not the least of which is herd size and forage production conditions. Currently, drought in parts of the U.S. has made baler sales slow down as producers are evaluating the next steps for their operations.

This can mean deals for those in the market, if you know what to look for. Carefully inspecting used machines can uncover great opportunities at auction. Timing is also important as certain pieces of equipment, like balers, tend to follow predictable seasonal sales patterns.

Andy Campbell and Dave Mowitz discuss factors affecting used baler sales, as well as the market for used semi trucks in this podcast episode.

Meet Andy Campbell

Andy Campbell is director of insights at Tractor Zoom. As a past engineer, professor, and entrepreneur, Campbell is passionate about bridging the gap between data and action for farmers, dealers, auctioneers, and ag lenders. He continues to help operate his family farm in Iowa.

Tractor Zoom was started in 2017 to help farmers and other decision makers have access to current equipment values and make data-driven decisions about heavy equipment.

Meet Dave Mowitz

Dave Mowitz worked at Successful Farming from 1982 to 2022, covering equipment trends for Successful Farming magazine, the Successful Farming TV show, and the Ageless Iron Almanac. Although recently retired, he continues to serve as a contributing editor and now podcast host.

Mowitz was raised on a family farm in Nebraksa, of which he is now a part-owner.

Listen to the Podcast

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Episode Highlights

• The used baler market is facing a decline in sales volume, because baler sales are influenced by livestock needs and current conditions are impacting herd size and forage production.
• While most large-scale livestock producers prefer large bales, small square bales remain popular in more urbanized areas for hobby farms, and can sell at a premium in those areas.
• The used semi truck market is volatile; if you’re in the market right now you need to be proactive.

Transcript

Please note, this transcript has not been edited.

Dave Mowitz: I am Dave Mowitz with Successful Farming magazine. I’m by Andy Campbell of Tractor Zoom the kind of the site you want to go to if you’re tracking the latest offerings in farm machinery, but also the trends that are there. And Andy, let’s talk about balers. Here we are. We’re approaching the end of April. The first cutting is going to probably be coming due at least in the Midwest, couple, two, three weeks. We’re getting some rain here. Yeah. But so, balers going to hit the…

Andy Campbell: Yeah, depending on where you’re at.

Dave Mowitz: the ground going. And balers, unlike other used machinery, lives in its own little world, doesn’t it, because of the huge influence of livestock, especially cattle.

Andy Campbell: it right. Yeah, you’ve got the the cattle that are feeding on it, but you’ve got beef cattle and dairy cattle. But on top of that, too, with all the different geographies, because I was actually just in Oklahoma yesterday, and talking to a dealer down there and different side story we can get to later. But he was mentioning that he’s gearing up to be really busy coming up in about a week, because part of their geography is going to start cutting soon.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: So you’ve got that North to South geography that goes on. Plus you’ve got just the different types of forage that are cutting and who’s eating it or what’s eating it. Whether it’s the first going to the cattle, but then what later is maybe going just to the premium horse farms. So there’s just enough different variables here that it makes it interesting.

Dave Mowitz: Well, it’s also my observation of the years of following equipment offerings was that balers were pretty consistent. didn’t see, I mean, if cattle prices took, beef cattle prices took a major hit, for example, yes, you would see baler sales kind of drop off, but they’re fairly consistent year in and year out when it comes to sales. unless things are really kind of tough.

Andy Campbell: and, and we might have a really good topic for today because I think we might be in one of those scenarios, but from a valuation standpoint, I think you’re right. And I look at, you know, the auction trends, the dealership trends in terms of pricing. And you go back a few years and granted you’ve got the, post COVID supply chain issues and they, Baylor’s did rise in price, but not nearly as significantly as what we saw everything else rise in price. And.

Dave Mowitz: Right.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: And conversely, they haven’t dropped as much. They just don’t fluctuate nearly as much on the used side as you will with some of your other equipment. They do fluctuate, but not nearly the volatility that you get in combines or tractors.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. So what’s the big news? Was it that?

Andy Campbell: there. No, no, that is that is not it. And on maybe on the downside, it’s actually you’re saying that it’s a relatively consistent market. And from a valuation standpoint, yeah.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, mean as far as new purchases, used purchases, what’s available, the numbers seem to be fairly consistent. Now, yeah, mean that’s compared to what, tractors and combines? Yeah, it could be. I mean we’ve had a way over supply of used tractors and combines recently, although that’s now modulated this winter. I mean that’s, right.

Andy Campbell: For the most part, yeah, on the the combine side. Now we have to have a whole nother podcast to talk about tractors because that’s that’s super interesting. But on the Baylor side of things, like I said, I was just down in Oklahoma. I was out in Western Kansas the day before talking to these different dealers and and actually the sales of Round Baylor’s in 24 took a pretty big hit from a volume standpoint of new.

And then I expect it probably to follow suit again this year. The forage industry has really slowed down. Uh, not all across the board cause we’ll talk, there are some bright spots out there, but the volume of sales that we’re seeing is about 40 % lower year over year. Uh, and all of 24 was quite a bit lower than 23. And so I was asking him about that just because, you know, we follow the corn market and how that affects tractors. And, and then of, you know, conversely, you’ve got the beef market that beef and dairy actually.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Wow.

Andy Campbell: Oddly enough, both are doing great right now. But that doesn’t seem to be translating into more money going into balers. And the really the big kicker is grass and drought. Because we with the pervasive drought, it largely through I mean, it’s here in Iowa, but Kansas, yeah, west, Texas, especially if you’re just not growing that much stuff, you just can’t produce that many more bales. And now

Dave Mowitz: Right.

Dave Mowitz: in the West.

Andy Campbell: chicken or the egg because you don’t have that grass, you can’t increase your herd size. And so what we’re seeing now, and this is, you know, probably no news to any of your listeners here that the herd size in the United States is just down significantly. I think we are, they, the USDA just put out a release and I think we have like 86.7 million head inventory now. that’s down about a percent over last year, but if you rewind the clock, I mean, we are up to almost 95 million.

Dave Mowitz:Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: pre-COVID and way back into 2000, we were closer to a hundred million head. So, you know, like I said, there’s not the grass, there’s not the forage to feed the animals. So you don’t increase your herd size. Compound that right now with interest rates. And so it’s kind of funny to think about a cow the same way I think about a tractor on a dealership lot, but that costs money. It’s opportunity costs sitting out there in your field and you can get a whole lot more out of it right now.

maybe it sounds bad, but by taking it to the locker, and capitalizing off of the beef aspect of a heifer versus reinvesting it in your herd and growing it into a cow and increasing your herd size. So, it was down at a Wilkes ranch, huge ranch down in Texas, probably about a month ago, two months ago. And they were talking about this and they have ranches in Texas, up in the snake river, Oregon, Idaho area in Montana. And they’re saying it just does not make financial sense.

to reinvest the heifer into the herd right now, first because you’re not sure if you can feed it. And then also that opportunity cost of not just sending it to market and capitalizing off the high beef prices, all that’s keeping the herd size down. All of that is actually keeping the sales of the forage equipment down. So long, long answer to your story, but I think that’s what’s driving this industry right now.

Dave Mowitz: No, I was going to ask about herd size because I’d seen the same thing and I’d seen the same USD report when it was dropped down and that is indelibly tied into Ford’s availability out west and the south. And I think we’ve become a little Midwest centric when it comes to machinery, don’t we? You know, we realize the juggernaut that the Midwest represents when it comes to machinery sales.

But when you get into forage, forage is a western dependent product to a large degree. A lot of the feedlots get their calves from the south, southeast or the west. And the southeast is suffering from drought too as well. and I said before the numbers are down. Well, if you don’t have the mouths out there, you’re just not needing to produce the forage. But then again, the other problem is the drought situation.

Andy Campbell: It does.

Dave Mowitz: And to see Kansas as dry as it is right now is kind of alarming. And we’re beginning to see fires occurring where typically at this time of year, we don’t see fires. So I suppose that’s really dried up the Baylor sales is what you’re saying. That means our inventory of uses dropped as well, I take it.

Andy Campbell: It has, but not nearly to the same degree that the reduction of new has happened. And so, yeah, we are down on the used side year over year. You if I look at this, that overall Hay and Forge, not just Baylor’s, but that overall supply is down about 7 to 10 % on dealer lots from year over year. But like I said, the sales are down 40%. And so while yeah, it is good that we’re flushing out some of that used.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: not at nearly the pace that they need to. Just because sales are down so much more significantly. And then getting to your point earlier on the dry Kansas and everything. When I was driving, I drove to Hoxie, Kansas to talk to AgriCenter. And there was so much, actually, I didn’t see a single creek bed that had any water in it. So once we got south of the Platte River, beautiful country, but no water. And it’s really something that they’re dealing with.

Dave Mowitz: sure.

Right.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. This is April. Yeah. This is April. mean, I grew up in Nebraska. You know, we were kind of used to drought. You’d have that August streams to kind of dry up the flat river. You could go and play baseball on it, but that was in August and may you had the melt off that was occurring, but that would come down off of the mountains. And then also any kind of rainfall that was there.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: And I was talking to a farmer about the Republican River going across Kansas and what scared him so much was that that’s the river of main irrigation supply in some ways also feeds the aquifer that goes That Kansas farmers have to tap into and he said yeah this thing in Hess and had any water flowing down at Significance this entire winter and usually in the spring. He said we’re worried about flooding. He said we’re far from flooding so

I don’t want to sound dire, but it’s really kind of beginning to stack up of being a real fun summer, isn’t it? So, Baylor’s are not going to be running across. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Right. Yeah. And it, it’s Well, I was going to say, it’s just nothing that they haven’t dealt with before. And so you see a lot of farmers that are certainly adaptable. And, um, and when I was at agger center, they were mentioning, you know, the, reduction in the sales of round balers. And again, that’s a prolific piece of machinery out there, but they said it’s not all forage. And to talk about the adaptability of some of the farmers out there, he said that forage harvesters were actually a very big bright spot for them.

Dave Mowitz: yes.

Dave Mowitz: Gosh yes.

Andy Campbell: And which if you follow the equipment industry, yeah, so self-propelled forage harvesters. So you’re big, you’re, you’re cloth, Jaguars, choppers. Yes. And so they have been just the biggest pain in the butt for dealers for so many years, because they’re so expensive. They depreciate so fast. They’re hard to resell and they’ve just been a problem child. And so, Lee, who I was talking to without there, he’s like, yeah, believe it or not, this is, you know, this is great for us right now, but

Dave Mowitz: Really?

Yeah.

Choppers. Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: Yes.

Andy Campbell: when we drilled into okay, why is this? He said it’s the adaptability of the farmer that probably is double cropping right now. So you’ve got you know, your wheat country, rye, trit, and he said they’re planting this stuff, they’re chopping it, and they’re chopping it early enough because springs are happening earlier. And then they’re they’re double cropping it, and then likely throwing in soybeans. He’s like, they’re they’re making more off of that forage of the the trit the rye the wheat.

Dave Mowitz: Yes.

Dave Mowitz: soybeans.

Andy Campbell: to more than they can actually plant corn or by planting corn. He said, even with good yields, he’s like, their ROI is better. And so that’s really propelling those choppers out there.

Dave Mowitz: Wait a minute, the thing with choppers though, you need to have a feedlot to take it to or a big dairy or a dairy. And we’re talking out West, these things aren’t like you would find in Wisconsin necessarily. That’s an interesting trend right there. Guys that typically are just grain farmers that are becoming forage farmers in a way, aren’t they, with this trend?

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm. Right.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: Yeah, and I do think you’re seeing some of the dairies move as well. And again, this just shows on how much of the machinery market is tied so tightly with the movements in the livestock and the value chain. But what we’re seeing is a lot of the consolidation of the dairies. You you certainly see that in Wisconsin. And when I was down on one of my earlier Texas trips between Dallas and Waco, they were talking about that I-35 corridor used to be full of these dairies.

Dave Mowitz: gosh yes.

Andy Campbell: And they said, not, not the case anymore that they’ve moved largely out West more towards Lubbock. And, and so they’re missing their dairy customers. Yeah. But, but I think you’re starting to see that too, just your consolidation of dairies, not just up North in Wisconsin, but you’re seeing it in Texas and other places. And so that shifting of your call it your consumer base of forage presents other opportunities for machinery sales to also kind of shift their traditional sale pattern.

Dave Mowitz: really?

Dave Mowitz: So I’m out there, I’m looking, I need a new baler. I’ve run mine pretty hard. And it’s time to turn over. I don’t want to buy new because right now everybody’s kind of.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Shying away from anything new and the and the debt that comes with it Is there an opportunity in that sweet late model bailer? Market because really frankly when it comes to use bailers It’s kind of almost has to always be late model once you reach a certain point in time a bailer becomes Getting close to going to the salvage yard because of the amount of money it takes to replace a lot of the parts that have been worn out on those things I did it account

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Dave Mowitz: on used balers that 2020 to 2025, they’re about a little short of a thousand deer, about short of 700 New Holland, short of 400 Vermeer, 200 Case IH, 250 Massys out there. And that doesn’t include all the other makes that are available. So, and that’s spread across the country. That’s down from when I was looking at balers a couple of years ago in the magazine and doing an in-depth look.

So is the use market kind of dried up a little bit?

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: I wouldn’t say it’s dried up, your comment on it, there’s a lot of factors that go into that used market. And the first point that you made of, Hey, I can’t continue to recondition this, you know, it gets costly. And, that actually is the whole point of conversation I had with a dealer in Welch, Oklahoma at you banks equipment yesterday. He’s like, he’s seen a shift on the farmers, whether it’s the willingness or ability to recondition fix and repair their balers. He’s like,

Dave Mowitz: yeah.

Andy Campbell: You used to be able to see that they would hold onto balers 15 years and, and you might even get like a third owner, a third used owner out of a baler by the time you kind of wash out of it. And then it goes sits in the fence line somewhere. And he’s like, that seems to have shortened to about eight years now. And maybe you get two used cycles out of this. you, somebody buys a new, they traded in, you get a second owner and then they traded in and you get, you know, a third owner, a second used owner. He’s like, and then that

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: tends to be it and you get to that eight to 10 years and and then that thing is, know, fence post holding up a barbed wire fence. So he’s he’s seen that shift that’s happened. Exactly. Yes. And believe me, like when we’re coming back through the Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas border, we saw many of those, those bone yards that were out there and plenty of old bailers that were sitting there. And I think that just kind of symbolizes a little bit of

Dave Mowitz: Salvage yard, yeah.

Andy Campbell: Hey, it’s not worth my time to try to fix this. And then also you have a little bit of complication. You have more technology or newer technology. It gets a little harder for some to fix. and, but yeah, it’s opportunity cost too, that people are like, I want uptime. want new. and so anyways, yeah, he said that’s the trend for better, for worse. that’s starting to be the trend and yeah, from the used market drying up on these used bailers. Yes.

But I’ve always been told by my dad, he’s like, when everybody’s zigging, that’s probably about the time you need to look to zag. Exactly. And I think there are some, some farmers and I even see it from the dealer side too. They said they’re focusing on those older balers and they’re reconditioning them really well. They’re just doing a lot of preventative maintenance on them. And they’re able to make that equipment last way longer into the depreciation curve. Because you’ll lose. when I’ve looked at the data, except for your first couple of years, you lose.

Dave Mowitz: Time to zag. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: 15%, maybe 20 % that first year on your used baler cost. After that, it gets to be about 10, then it’s seven, then it’s five. And so if you can make that older baler last for your operation and take care of it well, it doesn’t devalue that much anymore. know, cause 5 % of, Yeah, but it has to hit kind of that.

Dave Mowitz: no it doesn’t really that’s so i find that surprising it’s one of those pieces of equipment that just well it’s yeah it lasts a longer i mean we’ve certainly improved the quality that manufacturers improve the quality of balers i know that i know that they put a lot more effort into stronger components and you can buy the premium balers which have a little longevity bump to them

Andy Campbell: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it lasts.

Dave Mowitz: Which you would difference between like the R series and the MC or is dear the being the premiums that they’ll have a little stronger component tree inside the machine to last longer or just put out more bales, but I’m kind of surprised this would be an opportunity for a guy to look that doesn’t mind doing the work in the shop right that will take the time in the winter to recondition the baler and get it ready because

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: Yes.

Dave Mowitz: even though they become a little more complicated, Baylor’s pretty straightforward type of machine. Round Baylor is, that is. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Right. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Your belt baler that it’s, you know, the components are there. There is new, newer technology that can kind of bolt on and do some more things. But, but by and large, yes, you can work on it and working with a supplier of parts, your dealer from the service standpoint, you can really kind of keep those things up if you’ve got the capacity and if you’ve got the know-how to be able to do it. And so, yeah, like I said, it’s probably a good opportunity for a lot of people to zag out in the market and take advantage of some of those because we are seeing

from an auction value standpoint, getting to your earlier point, like are there buys out there? Like what, what is happening for the round baler in the auction market right now? I’ll tell you from a very high level view in 22 average price of all the balers that were out there, uh, 28,000, 23 that dropped to just shy of 25,000. And in 24, an aggregate that dropped to 23.3. So we are seeing the used market drop.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: which we should we see it across all kinds of categories because 22 was ridiculous here. And so we’re seeing those kind of come back within reason at the auction market. So that there’s, you know, there’s an opportunity to buy that used that’s out there. And from a bright spot to I mean, just hit a case in point. I looked in this past month on TractorZoom.com to see okay, what has sold like, you know, what was a gem that was out there. There was a New Holland and RB

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: 460. So this thing is a 22. it is. Yeah, just a solid baler. The one thing that I had double check, it only has 263 bales on it. So although this thing is sold like, you know, just this year, three years old, but probably only two years of use, someone only put out 260 some bales on this thing. And I went in because it’s so new, I was actually able to go to New Holland’s website and build a brand new one. It’s like,

Dave Mowitz: great, Baylor.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: brand new, what would this thing cost with all the specs? It’s $80,000. This sold just what two weeks ago, April 5th. This sold for 47,000 over a 40 % discount. Close to half. Yeah. Yep.

Dave Mowitz: So half, right. Like new machine. Yeah, my dad always said it’s not even broken in yet, right? know, and he always said that about combines. It doesn’t have 500 hours on, it’s not even broken in. So in a baler like that, it would be on our farm growing up, that would have lasted for another decade or more in its usage that he had. I found that, in fact, I tracked the sale of 560M.

Andy Campbell: Right.

Dave Mowitz: deer combines, all 2020s. And I found three examples and it kind of proves the point about usage having a huge impact upon baler prices. And that’s the number of bales that have gone out the back of that machine. There was one sold in Newcastle just here a week ago. It had a bail count of just short of 5,000 bales. Again, this is a 2020. And nothing…

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: particularly outstanding and net wrap only bail kicker a few bells and whistles, but typically like most bales Especially the 560s. It was kind of standard equipment. So a week earlier than that there was a 2020 again It sold for 20,000. So first one sold for 20 40,000 actually 41,000 next one 20,000 the difference is

Andy Campbell: Hmm.

Dave Mowitz: It had just shot out 11,000 bales. So the first one had just short of 5,000 bales. The second one, 11,000 bales. The third one, again, 2020. And again, we’re talking standard setup. This one even had a few more bells and whistles on it. It sold for 11,500 because it had turned out 24,000 bales. So.

Andy Campbell: yep.

Dave Mowitz: Usage is certainly tied into the value of that bail and that’s why I remember any auctioneer that I’ve ever talked to about what do you look for in bails? said they’ll all say number one how many bails have gone out and it used to be you really couldn’t be able to tell that I mean you had to go by the sellers honesty but these days with the bail counters it’s pretty much well known unless for some reason they’re jimmying with that bail counter or it accidentally broke

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Right.

Andy Campbell: Hmm.

Dave Mowitz: You should know how many bales have gone out of that machine and You can see that there is as much as a $30,000 difference and Combines are the same age just because of usage So that’d be the the number one things guys need to look for when they’re out there shopping you got the gem that you have like new combo or baler, I mean and You won’t have to do much in that if you’re a midsize farmer just doing some forage on your place

Andy Campbell: Right.

Andy Campbell: Yep.

Dave Mowitz: Will you?

Andy Campbell: Right. No, and the one thing that you’re mentioning on the bail counter, because there are some older bailers that just don’t have the bail counter. And so we’ll see that across our data that that it’s missing. But for most of the newer bailers, you’ve got a bail counter on there. And I’ll tell people if you’re going to do one thing and you do plan on reselling this via auction or even dealership, take care of that bail counter. Because just looking, like you mentioned the 560 EMS, I just pulled it up on our Tractors and Pro comp site that our dealers use.

And I’m looking across these bailers and these two sitting side by side look identical, but whether it was omission from an auctioneer or likely because of a lack of a functional bail counter, you’ve got one that sold with a thousand bales for $45,000 just two days ago. The next one right next to it. The one right next to it, $11,000. And it’s hard to tell it’s close to the same age.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: But just tracked with the one that I said, yeah.

Andy Campbell: in number of years, but it just does not have any kind of bail count on it. And, you know, obviously if you’re a buyer, you’re probably going to assume the worst. So many people are buying these bailers remote. And so it’s hard to get to an on-site auction at all times to buy what you need. And you’re just going to assume the worst. So keep track of that bail counter. It’s probably only going to help you out.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: And there’s some other thing. I remember I put together, I went back to my notes and from auctioneers that I’ve asked, what do you do when you evaluate a baler? Even without a bail counter, there’s some things that you can look for that are triggers that’ll tell you how that bail has been used. I remember Scott Cook, who, out of Cook Auction down in Missouri, moves a lot, a lot of balers across the mid-south.

Way into New Mexico and he always said, know a little trick of the trade. He said is pull go look at that baler Go to the front of the baler pull back the belts and check the bolt heads He said if they’re worn thin he said that’s seen a lot of use It’s a way that you can get around that if you don’t have a baler cut But he said belts gauging wear is a must thing to do even on any type of baler if it’s been a particularly he made a comment about fescue grass as being

tougher on harder on belts than say you would find Midwest grasses. It’ll wear them faster. Or has it been used for silage? Has it been used for other type of forage? Corn stalks really can wear bales off in a hurry. The pickup, he said look at the pickup, look at the teeth. Again, it tells you a lot of bits been used, but also how well it was taken care of. Chains and sprockets.

Andy Campbell: corn stocks are rough, right?

Dave Mowitz: It’s like combines, right? You want to know how old a combine is and you don’t have the hours. Go look at changes, sprockets and belts. Tires for damage. And then just the overall condition is what was there. And it used to be you’d go buy a baler. You wouldn’t necessarily have to inspect it. But now it’s just a little bit different deal because the value of these things has gone up and it’s kind of crucial to take a look at the machine. So that was some of the…

the guidelines to see if you really want to pay the premium price. I was going to ask that the most common baler that’s out there, the 5×6 baler, that’s the farmer baler, right? That’s still kind of reigning supreme. So when we get into the 4x, is it the 4×5? Never, a 4×6, that’s more the commercial baler operator, because he can get the bales on a truck better, right?

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Andy Campbell: Yes, and another.

Right. And there are other limitations too. And again, being Midwestern centric, I never thought about this, but if you’ve ever taken a road trip out East and so you’ve got a lot of forage opportunity out East, especially feeding the dairy market out there. So you Pennsylvania, upstate New York and Virginia, your roads are so much thinner there. And so you’ll tend to have a need a thinner baler to be able to double stack it and run down the roads. And so

Dave Mowitz: Boring, yes.

Andy Campbell: your size of balers also dictated by geography a little bit where you’re not going to sell a wide baler out east just because they’re not going to able to double stack them in and not clip somebody going down the highway.

Dave Mowitz: That’s why we see more 4×6 balers out east, isn’t it? You see them in Kentucky or at Tennessee, especially the eastern part of the state, upstate New York and areas like that. So it’s just not the commercial baler goes to the small balers because he’s hauling maybe interstate and once you get down the road with the semi, it’s just outside of that, is there much price difference between a 5×6 as opposed to a 4×6 baler?

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: It’s just the popularity and like say the Midwest of the 5×6 baler and it’ll bring a premium. I guess my question is, is there a reason why a farmer looking for a baler shouldn’t just settle for a 4×6 if he finds a cherry baler that you just described that is that size?

Andy Campbell: Hmm. Yeah, that’s a great question. Not even one that I’ve looked into. I you are, you are, I’m trying to think of a very common four by six size of Baylor right now that I can compare. Uh, and it would help. So a four, let’s say a four 60 M. Okay. So we’ll, do a little live research right here. So I’ll tell you what I’m looking at. So John Deere’s five 60 Ms right now. We’ve got almost 400 of them at auction here. Just sold in the last year, almost 20, 27.

Dave Mowitz: I’m stumping Andy.

Dave Mowitz: Oh, 460, 460M, yes, yeah.

Dave Mowitz: wow, really?

Andy Campbell: from what from let’s see what are my dates here well no let me throw my my filter here I’ll go sale date so I’m looking at something relatively I’ll just say the last 12 months

So 560Ms, 174 of those have sold in the last 12 months. 1,200 of those, or not 1,200 of those, 1,200 in addition are sitting on dealer lots or have been sitting on dealer lots in the last year. So not quite 10X on dealer lots. But if you can help me with these numbers, so an auction average of those 560Ms is 27.6 thousand. The dealer list.

So just what they’re advertised for, not necessarily what they negotiate and sell for is 42.3 thousand. Okay. And that type of gap between list and auction is kind of what we’re seeing now for a lot of, yeah, yep. It’s, it’s a lot, but it’s kind of what we’re seeing now. But we said we want to compare that to a 460M.

Dave Mowitz: 15,000 plus, right, difference, yeah.

Dave Mowitz: Price wise.

Andy Campbell: So, yep, and let me make sure. So within the last 12 months, there’s certainly less of these.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, I noticed there had the just short of 600 560Ms over 100 560Rs, the premium spec. The 560Ms, there was just 155. So that’s the three-year-old combine or less.

Andy Campbell: Hmm.

Andy Campbell: So on the value side of things, do you want to take a guess before I divulge what I’m seeing?

Dave Mowitz: the um, but that’s just, I’m going to be concerned. 25,000. You had 27 before. Yeah. Let’s say 25,000 auction average. Am I, am I close? Oh, Dave. Oh, okay. Well, you gave me the, you kind of gave me the lead in before. So anyway, yeah. But new listing. No, daily list.

Andy Campbell: Yes, on the used.

Andy Campbell: You think auction average? Correct. You are not that bad. You are very close. So 25,900 is your average. You’re pretty solid at this.

Andy Campbell: And on the, dealer, the dealer list. So the other one went for 42,000. What would you assume that the, the dealer retail.

Dave Mowitz: Okay, so I’ll be chicken here. I’ll say 42,000. I would say 41,000

Andy Campbell: Okay, it’s a little steeper of a discount, 37,000.

Dave Mowitz: OK. So.

Andy Campbell: So you are coming in, I mean, the four by six baler, at least in this case, and this study on those averages is coming in less, probably to the tune of one eighth, about 10 % less.

Dave Mowitz: Right.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. So here’s the question. I’m out there looking. I’m a farmer. I’m looking for a used baler. I want something nice, something with less use and it’s in good condition. I don’t want to pay that premium or brand new because, you know, I’m going to use this baler for the next 10 years for the amount of hay that I put up. It’ll cover me.

I see a 560M, I see a 460M, and the 460M is a better price or is a good and better condition. Is there a reason why they should be hung up on bail size when it comes to just getting a buy in this situation? I mean, it really shouldn’t be. it that one foot make that big a difference? But.

Andy Campbell: Well, I mean that.

Andy Campbell: It does depend on your feed in operation as well. So I mean, what are you going to do with the bale? And where is it going to store? Where is it going to sit? How is it going to transport? So is your downstream operation going to be able to fit that? You know, after that, mean, we’re talking, bringing me back to my engineering days and figuring out some volume calculation here, but how much more hay can you actually fit in a five by six versus a four by six? So you’ve got more hay per wrap.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Right.

Good point.

Andy Campbell: that’s in there. So you’re to go through a little bit more wrapping the four by six. So yeah, beyond that though, I think it will.

Dave Mowitz: Right. a 5 by 6, of course. Right.

Dave Mowitz: I mean you’re dumping more bales with the smaller baler, but I’ve always wondered about that difference in the less popularity. I know that Midwest farmers go for the five by six, there’s this hauling it to the side of the field, storing it there, taking it back to the farmstead, and it meets their need.

Andy Campbell: Correct.

Andy Campbell: The the one thing actually, and I’m glad I yesterday when I was the reason why I went down to Oklahoma, we went and spoke at a co bank farm credit conference and spoke alongside a great guy, Tim Waldron. He works for parallel ag. He’s a used equipment manager down there. And he was talking about the advice that he provides farmers. And we’ve had a couple different chances he and I to chat.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: And one of the great pieces of advice he gives is don’t just think about your operation, but think about the next buyer for the actual piece of equipment that you’re buying, which is, you know, it’s not something we traditionally think about, but he’s like at their dealership. are, they’re planning who is this purchaser. And as soon as they sell somebody something new or even slightly new, they are already having that discussion with the farmer of how long do you plan on using this? When would you like to trade it back in and who potentially is going to use this? So in that concept.

Dave Mowitz: That’s true.

Andy Campbell: That’s a really kind of good whole life cycle thing that a lot of us should think about because he’s like, do not buy this thing that’s so specialized that it might, you know, be your cat’s meow, but it’s not going to be anybody else’s. And because when you try to resell that in, you’re for one, not going to get the money out of it because nobody else is going to think that it’s, what you thought it was. And it might actually just get stuck. And you’re going to be really disappointed. So

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: That is one thing when you’re talking about the four by six versus five by six, you also have to kind of look at your local market and say, what am I going to do with this when I’m done? And if nobody else is going to buy it, then that’s a very expensive fence post.

Dave Mowitz: Hmm

Dave Mowitz: Well, here we’re sitting in Iowa. It’s five by six country. mean, farmers just want that. They’ve always bought that baler. They like that because they get the hay off the field just a little bit faster. I suppose the four by six is always going to carry a discount with it in a situation like this, it? As opposed to some, you know, on the countryside where they’re in the west where they’re producing more commercial hay that goes to dairies or, and they’re just transporting it down the road that they want to.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Of those guys might be going to large square bales too, which has become out west more of the baler that professional hay growers are going to.

Andy Campbell: Yes, yeah, we’re seeing that more in Colorado and some large dry areas where you can just stack them, store them, dry environments. And you’re transporting them with the telehandler out in the field that we’re seeing a lot more of those large squares.

Dave Mowitz: Right. Talk about that. Small squares, large squares, any observation whatsoever. We don’t sell a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. And they probably are in areas, right, they’re probably in areas where you got guys supplying hay to horse farms to dairies. That’s really where they’re going to exist, aren’t they? Around maybe major metropolitan areas or big dairy producing areas. Although, as you said before,

Andy Campbell: Correct. Correct. Yeah, you don’t sell a lot of them.

Andy Campbell: Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: With dairy, dairy is more of a mixture of both dry hay but also chopped hay as well. I assume that they’re out there and if you want to have a small square baler you can look around but their numbers are just far, far less than the round.

Andy Campbell: I liken these small square balers to my brother’s vinyl collection. Like who actually still has their old record player? Very few people have the original record player, but because so few people have that and then we’ve all gone digital that they’re becoming eclectic and actually the value is now rising. And I think you’re seeing the same thing with small squares is that especially in your urban areas.

Dave Mowitz: Ha ha ha!

Dave Mowitz: I understand that. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: because now you have hobby farmers who have hobby goats. They have maybe a horse or two and you don’t need a large square. I mean, you don’t even have a tractor to be able to move around a large square, but you do need those small squares and your ability and willingness to pay your perspective on what it costs is so different because you’re not looking at this from an ROI standpoint is, you know, is this bail worth it? You’re looking at your goat and saying like, my goat is worth anything.

Dave Mowitz: Right.

Andy Campbell: And so I will pay $10 for a small square to feed my goat. so, yes. So you’re getting a lot more of your small squares. It is in those urban ish areas. Oh, good.

Dave Mowitz: the coach. I should laugh. It’s a really big market. You know, I’m south of, I’m south. Yeah. Right. And you’re not to make this too Iowa centric. We’re out of Des Moines. Well, we’re centered out of Des Moines. You’re, you’re east of town at Pella. I’m south of town and town named Indianola and just literally two miles away is a guy that sells a lot of square bales, both hay and straw.

a straw. In fact, his biggest complaint is he can’t find wheat. He doesn’t have enough land himself to grow wheat, but finding wheat to get straw bales is a real tough thing for him to do. But he’s all small square bales. That’s his life and he has made a pretty good living doing this kind of thing. So, yeah, I can see where that impacts the market that way as well. Around major metropolitan areas, you’re going to probably find more small square balers, in other words.

Andy Campbell: You do. Yeah. I think down in, I mean, Iowa again, is a very small microcosm. But you go down to, to Texas where their urban sprawl is just sprawl is probably not even the right adjective. It’s just everywhere. And you have a lot of these people that are buying, you know, 10, 20 miles outside of a metro area that have a small utility tractor. They’ve got a, you know, track skid steer track loader and

Dave Mowitz: massive.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: then they have small animals and so they’re buying squares all the time. And so you really start to see that market pop up. We still aren’t tracking a ton of them on the use side. So I think there’s, I should say on the new side or slightly used, there’s still enough, I think supply out there that people are repairing the old one and making it work. but it’s probably, it’s just not a big enough initiative at a big enough market potential for John Deere or Vermeer to really reinvest and get into that game. But

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: But there is certainly a niche.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, certainly you don’t see the technology has come out in large round bales being visited in small squares. Now, large squares are a different deal when you see the monitors and the isobus systems that monitor controller, I’m sorry, that they have there, which is it advances what you might even find on a combine on some of the bales that are out there. It’s impressive. Not small squares. mean, it’s you’re still going out there chewing.

Andy Campbell: Right, no, I would be surprised if we ever saw, right, you’re not gonna see a moisture sensor on our small squares.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. Anything, other hay equipment, it’s just kind of ubiquitous, isn’t it? mean, rakes, mowers. Yeah, tedders, I’m sorry. Yes.

Andy Campbell: Right, you’ve got rakes, tethers, mowers, know, yeah, but I mean, there’s a lot of it out there. We don’t see the fluctuation, you know, the less mechanical moving motorized parts that we see on equipment, the less volatility we see. mean, iron sells for what the iron is and the job that it does. So there is some, but not to the extent that we see with the other pieces of equipment. So

Dave Mowitz: Boy.

Andy Campbell: It’s certainly out there. tends to fluctuate just like the Baylor’s do with the forage industry, with the cattle market and all the factors we’ve been talking about. they’re certainly out there. I do think, and I’ve seen some interesting moves in players in the forage market. Vermeer, for instance, really is kind of a, I’d say stepping on the gas a little bit and expanding their game and being a full line forage equipment industry. So they’ve gone through an acquisition recently. Yeah, they have.

They’ve come out with both digital technology, I think in terms of an app that kind of connects all the units together, but then also they, they purchased a manure spreader company through acquisition. And so you don’t think about that as forage for sure, but what goes in has got to come out and it is part of that cycle. So you got to tie it all together and they’ve gone to like a triple wing mower and quite a few other things. so you’re, you’re seeing some strategic plays by people finding their place in the market.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: And so yeah, I’m kind of excited to see where that takes them.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, it’d be fun because Vermeer does make a great line of equipment and, know, good Iowa based innovator and the round baler. I’m never sure which came first, the chicken or egg in this, was it Alice Chalmers or was it Vermeer? But I think Vermeer always kind of gets the, the nod for being the round baler innovator in the world. as they took old tech, the, what we used to call cigarette baler. That was the old Alice Chalmers baler that was out there.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: We had a neighbor that had one. and we used to have to help them bail. Now I had to help a lot of neighbors bail. My dad just kind of lent us out there because he was borrowing equipment from these guys too. So it was like, okay, I’ve got these boys. I’ll give you free labor. You know, if I can borrow your equipment and of all the, I hated small square bales. I stack more than I ever want to. But the one that I love going to was the guy that had the Alice Chalmers.

Andy Campbell: and just roll it up.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Roto baler, was that the name of that? The bales were light, they were easy to toss, they were easy to stack. I loved it. We called them the cigarette baler because it put out those small little round bales. Had you ever worked with that? Yeah, they were fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Mm hmm. Never never with that one. Huh? No, it’s but it’s funny because it is you’re talking about the you know, the the balers and your memories of them. I also my best friend growing up his dad bailed and had cattle and stuff. And so I would always get hired quote unquote, like I don’t think I actually got paid. But but I’m pretty sure he just gave me a milkshake afterwards. No, no, but yeah, we’d we’d sit on the rack afterwards or after following the baler and

Dave Mowitz: No, no, we never got paid. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: we’d stack and then we’d be the ones that had to go in the hay mount. And, but I loved it. I it was hot, especially once you got up near the top. Yeah, exactly. It would be in summer and then, and go ahead.

Dave Mowitz: God, the fate worse than death. No, in the middle of summer. yeah. yeah. Yeah.

No, I was just going to say as you got to the top, as if it was bad enough, you’re nearing heat exhaustion by this time. And of course, that was the hay you put in towards the end of the day. So it’s the most intense time to be, I hated stacking inside barns, hated it.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: It is. there’s a part of me that loved it though. And again, I think I’ve got selective memory. Like some evolutionary pieces just like jettisoned all the bad stuff out of my mind. But, but what I remember is also, yeah, stacking up inside of the Larson barn. And then, but once you got up, you started to cough your airflow because you’ve got a couple of those side doors, but you started to stack higher and then you didn’t get the cross flow anymore. And you got higher and closer to the top of the barn. You’re right. Cause it’d get later in the day as you got that. So

Dave Mowitz: All good for you.

Andy Campbell: the heat would build up and you’d be higher and it would just be so suffocatingly hot. But then if you worked hard enough, you could beat the elevator, which is bringing the bales up and you could peek down to the rack, which his brother, his older brother, Nick was down at the rack and throwing things on the elevator and the breath of air that you would get by sticking your head out of that window. It was, it was, I still like remember how that feels and like kind of how it tastes and

Dave Mowitz: Right.

Dave Mowitz: Yes, it was it was blessed.

Andy Campbell: man, you, yeah, you would be so itchy. My, your forearms are just covered in scars after that. But I do think I have such a selective nostalgia over that, that I also want to put my kids through that. So, and again, I don’t know if that’s nostalgia or like, or just being a mean parent, but, there’s some aspect of like,

Dave Mowitz: You should.

Dave Mowitz: But you’re a little bit of a sadistic parent, aren’t you? You just want them to go through that pain. Yes. Hey, my follow-up was the nice thing about bail, usually you bail for a neighbor is that you usually got a treat of some kind milkshake or in our case, it was a Coke. Just even that, that was enough. Or when you got to a certain age, you could even have a beer, which you’re now advanced high school, maybe college.

Andy Campbell: Yes, exactly, they should have to.

Andy Campbell: Yes.

Mmm.

Andy Campbell: Ooh.

Dave Mowitz: But remember I grew up in Nebraska, flood irrigation land. my bailing was a break because otherwise I spent my days moving irrigation pipe in the middle of a cornfield with no wind and irrigation, flood irrigation was like being in a rain forest because you have all this moisture under evaporating off. So it was a nice break to go to the neighbor’s place and get fed well and that way, but up in the barn.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: I’m glad you have good memories of that. do remember the air, but that’s regardless of what’s going on. Nothing else on forage equipment. Yeah. Choppers and stuff like that. We, really didn’t ask it. We didn’t plan on getting into that. That’s so specialized and really kind of hotspot areas, Wisconsin or Colorado or Texas, parts of Kansas. And it’s a tough thing. You say these things do show up at dealers lots though.

Andy Campbell: Yep, I was taller too, so it was easier to stack.

Dave Mowitz: And they’re kind of like tombstones. They just don’t move them, do they? So if you’re looking for a chopper…

Andy Campbell: No, and traditionally, like I said, yeah, if you’re looking for a chopper, I think now would be time I did do a price analysis. And I’ve looked at these things for years. I think it was first brought to my attention when I did a webinar for dealers two or three years ago. And a couple guys just chimed in during the webinar, they’re like, what about this Jaguar versus the, you know, what deer has got or

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Boy.

Andy Campbell: and just a few other ones. Like so many questions around it because it’s such a pain because they are so expensive and they depreciate relatively quickly. But I looked at the seasonality of these and at first I thought it was a nuance because you know averages can hide a lot of things. But when I look at auction prices, Q1 tends to be okay. I’m

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: Looking at forage harvesters here, I’ll tell you between 800 and 1500 step hours. tend to step hours tends to be a good representation of their price. Q1 150,000, Q2 auction price is 132,000, Q3 126,000, Q4 225,000. Almost twice as much at auction in Q4.

Dave Mowitz: Really? Twice as much.

Andy Campbell: Right. And you do tend to have better quality machines, but that’s largely dictated by the hours. So I shuffled that hour range all around and every single dice that I would get fourth quarter, largely November, but mostly December, uh, is 50 % or a hundred percent increases is probably pushing it, but well over 50 % increase on price and what we see in the fourth quarter at auction. So if you’re looking for a forage harvester and a deal, don’t necessarily wait till December.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: Don’t buy it in the fourth quarter. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Whoa, yeah, I mean you you pay a whole lot more and but you break this down and they also don’t sell in every single month. So December obviously is a massive month for purchasing March tends to be a fairly decent month when they move. But man, you go through a valley of May, June, July, where they just don’t bring top dollar and they don’t sell a ton. But man, don’t wait till December if you know you need one.

Dave Mowitz: Right. But this is true of other key pieces of equipment. Planters. Best time to a planter? June, May, June if you’re looking for a used planter. It’s been turned in and the guy’s pre-ordered or any time during the summer. Combines. Typically, what, winter? Especially right after harvest or?

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm. Right.

Dave Mowitz: or has that changed now?

Andy Campbell: I mean, it has leveled out. So it’s less seasonal now that you know, everybody went online during COVID. And so I think people are looking at kind of balancing that season out seasonality out, you don’t see any arbitrage like you do in choppers, that is such a significant price increase from all the other quarters to the fourth. But combines you do. So August, actually, there’s a huge flurry of activity of volume that happens in August on the combine side. But what happens in the summer?

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Right.

Andy Campbell: And it depends on the year to year, but I’m going to take 2024 of what kind of retell that story. What happened? There was too many combines and in row crop tractors, for instance, but they, if the dealerships are loaded with inventory, they have to unload because the, the carrying costs, the inventory cost is too high. And so they have to liquidate even though they don’t want to, um, that what that happens is it takes the premium buyers out of the market. Whoever buys those first combines that they leave the market. They don’t need a combine anymore. The next round happens.

those premium buyers are not bidding anymore. So you have kind of your secondary buyers and then you get to a point where everybody’s got a dang combine and what’s left are like people, maybe jockeys or anybody that’s like, I suppose I’ll take it for a 50 % discount. And so that happens as the summer progresses.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. And I will, yeah, they’ll just kind of let it sit on the lot because they can carry that money at a 50 % discount. A lot more than a dealer would is willing to do in the first place.

Andy Campbell: Yes. Yep. Yeah, they’re just structured differently from a cost standpoint. And so and they’re all about moving it around and less on the service side, service and parts that it’s not part of their business model. So they’re just structured differently and they can take those but only if it’s at such a significant discount. So and to my point on the seasonality being you tend to hit that late in the year, late in the summer buying season, not always but but August doesn’t bring the best prices for combines.

Dave Mowitz: Jordan, how are we doing on time? Good, you’re about 50 minutes right now. 50? Yeah. So I’m going to throw you a ball because this is something that I just noticed. I just noticed a trend and that’s on new semi trucks. The industry is in a huge flux right now again, isn’t it? And I’d notice stagnation in new truck sales thanks to trade wars.

What’s the headline that I noticed from one industry point out is that no new trucks are selling but the availability of used trucks is also lower and used a day cab trucks, you know the sweet spot for farmers Inventory levelers were up slightly in March but down a whopping 23 % year-over-year what’s going on with I hate to do this because I didn’t ask you to research this but

Andy Campbell: Ho ho ho ho.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Is there opportunity right now with semi trucks and will there continue to be this summer?

Dave Mowitz: The, is it the trucking industry is, is overwhelmed with used trucks or, um, I know that there’s no sale, that sales stagnation of new trucks.

Andy Campbell: Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: can be alarming too. You may not want to wait a year or two to buy change over trucks. The opportunity may be this summer. I guess that’s my question to you. Should they start looking for buyers now?

Andy Campbell: Well, so it’s really, you know, a couple points in this. You’ve got multi layered sandwich. You just fed me here, Dave. So first of all, well, you also can’t throw it. You can’t drop a term like, hey, I’m going to throw you a ball because in my mind I’m thinking you’re going to throw me a softball. So like, how are you setting me up here? And no, no, you’re throwing me a curveball. Very different things. But the coincidental piece is that

Dave Mowitz: I did. I never make it. I never make it simple. Do I buy now or not? Andy, what’s the what’s the decision?

Dave Mowitz: yeah, I would. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: You know, on the trucking side, I actually just got a LinkedIn message from one of my good college friends. He’s in Chicago and he reached out to me earlier this year. and his career has taken him into the trucking industry and following truck valuations. And really, I think it’s more on the financing side for him, financing, large fleet purchases. But the fact that he me, he just reached out the other day and bringing up this discussion on.

Dave Mowitz: Wow.

Andy Campbell: something is happening in the trucking industry. There’s being a shift and the question on valuation. So your timing is right because this question is being brought up in a few different areas. know, the whole, you know, curveball, not softball thing of I haven’t looked into the actual valuation of trucks of what is shifting. But I think from a next discussion of yours and I’m going to look into this. My guess is on the economic side of things, tariffs and the overall uncertainty, you know, as much as we talk about that in the farming industry,

Dave MowitZ: Yes.

Andy Campbell: we do have to kind of realize that people still need to eat and we’re buffeted by some of that volatility a little bit because people still need to eat because there are large buyers and and everything. There’s some on the consumer side of things, even the consumer packaged good on the food side. So further on down the food chain, that can be incredibly volatile. And so if you know the tariffs, for instance, change

the cost to import, you’re already running at such a tight margin on the some of those CPG consumer packaged goods that you could shut off a business plan in one swipe of the pen. And that then all of sudden has immediate trucking implications of well, CNA Robinson was planning on thousands of trucks going across the United States. Well, they might have to dial that back by 20%. Now all of sudden that’s 20 % usage on trucks immediately. And so I think they’re going to see the brunt of this

you know, kind of supply chain whiplash a lot sooner than what we will in the ag industry. And now what that does to valuations and trucks, there’s so many more trucks out there that I think that volume will respond in the data much faster. And so I am interested to see this auction market here happen on the truck side because large fleets, they’re not going to sit around on extra trucks if they can’t handle them. They will they will liquidate just to be nimble in the market, not get caught.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: upside down with the balance sheet. So I would expect this market to shift pretty quickly for large trucks. Now, your day cab and all that stuff, I’d have to look into that to be sure.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. Well, and that’s sweet spot for farmer purchases, the day cab, and that’s a little bit different dog to deal with. But I do know that in the 20, 25 plus years that I followed used equipment. Semi trucks were always pretty steady, but certainly in the last 10 years have gotten to be, we’ve seen some dramatic ups and dramatic downs when it comes to.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: trucks. We’ve seen some major carriers go bankrupt and shell out a lot of trucks that are out there and then a year later it’s like all of a sudden you can’t find a good used truck. Certainly there was the influence of the 2007 changeover when it came to the tier 4 engines and then the impact of that but it is a very volatile market and it’s one of those markets if you’re looking to buy a late model low hour, low mile

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: day cab, you really want to be prepared to move on it in opportunities that may be presented now, would you say that’s start looking?

Andy Campbell: Right. Yes. I’d say certainly look. And so that’s one of the reasons too, on TractorZoom.com why we built the Savior Search because I mean, it’ll look and give you an immediate alert if something pops up that fits your fancy, that hits your requirements. Yeah. So, so the whole idea is so you’re not always sitting there scrolling and you know, and it’ll just send you an immediate email alert. But the idea is that yes, I would be looking right now.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Now to know the definitive direction that the market’s gonna go, I’ve got to do more research to look into that data.

Dave Mowitz: Right. Sure. And what’s next time we get together, let’s do semi trucks because that may be the hot thing emerging right now. Don’t you think?

Andy Campbell: I think that would be good.

I do at least from a farm practicality standpoint, I mean, talking about our farm, that a lot of the labor that we have to kind of account for in your non plant and you know, harvesting season is taking grain to the ethanol plant that I mean, how many loads can you get in a day? Is a truck reliable? And, you know, if it starts, especially in your winter months, you just need that reliability to take it in because from a

Dave Mowitz: gosh.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: grain farmers standpoint, if you can exact a higher margin on your final good on your final grain that’s stored in the bin, that’s all profit. So it’s not like you’re investing more upfront in planting to try to hope for a better ROI. If you can get 10 cents more per bushel, that’s 10 cents more, you know, minus tax that’s going into your pocket that that’s real. But you’ve got to have the ability to move and act when the opportunity presents itself, which then requires a truck.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: Let’s make for a great podcast next time. We’ll throw that in and we’ll start getting into some of the harvest equipment that we’re gonna examine, maybe touch on combines. But I think the semi trucks could be fun. And you know, there’s certain thrill farmers feel about going buying semi trucks. I mean, it’s almost like a job, right? You gotta go buy a combine. You gotta go buy a baler. You gotta buy a tractor.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: But there’s a delight in buying a semi trucks with farmers. They always have a little smile when they get to the truck line at an auction. I don’t know, maybe I’m just imagining that, but they are fascinated with semi trucks. So it’s become a huge part of farms. And I remember when my dad got his first semi truck and he was like the only farmer in the area that had one. Now you go to the farms out there and they’re running with five or six of them.

Andy Campbell: You know, I will say from a an optics standpoint, so our truck is bare minimum. I mean, this thing is barely alive, but it it is alive and it it transports things from point A to point B and gets home sometimes. But I will say from your from your larger farms, if you think about it, they put a ton of pride into what they do, right? All farmers do. But how often do you have the opportunity to put your name on something? Right? I mean, exactly. Yeah, you’re not going to.

Dave Mowitz: Ha!

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: Okay, I’ll share.

Dave Mowitz: name going down the highway where everybody can see it. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Right, exactly. Not everybody’s going to wrap their combine, but what you can do is you could trick out your truck and have that be sharp. And it’s just a chance to show your pride in what you built. And you just don’t have many opportunities to do that in other pieces of machine.

Dave Mowitz: No.

We’re going to wrap up this podcast. have one last question for you. So just exactly in dollar figures, how much damage do you do to your dad’s backhoe when you busted it? Has he had it fixed yet?

Andy Campbell: Yeah. Yes, we have had it fixed. mean, it was a lawn ornament for a solid month. But yeah, and you who’d have thought a mulberry tree stump, a stump of mulberry tree could have done that. yeah, we, you know, we’re talking over 3K, 4K maybe by the time everything was said and done. So it wasn’t.

Dave Mowitz: Hahaha!

Dave Mowitz: yeah.

Has he let you back on the machine?

Andy Campbell: He did. And the absolute next time I did it, I moved. Well, not the next time, but I moved snow this summer or this winter came up. I’m like, I’m going to help, you know, retribution. I’m going to make up for this. So I moved tons of snow at the back. Oh, and the key is finicky and I turned it off, but I didn’t get it in the exact right off position. And, uh, yeah. So he goes, it starts up the next day. It’s dead. And you got to remove like five bolts to recharge the battery.

So I am not, I, it’s, he’s like, just go grab the shovel.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, he doesn’t like seeing you coming, does he?

Yeah, go grab a show. Don’t touch tobacco, son. I need it next week for doing some of ditch work.

Andy Campbell: You’re right.

Yes. yeah, it’s I do love you that you know all the things you can do with that thing but I’ll just it’s finicky. We’ll just leave it at that.

Dave Mowitz: they’re lovely things.

Yeah, I’ll had, I just had to give you a hard time. I’ve, I’ve broken enough equipment that, yeah, I’ve had my walk of shame to back to the house about, okay, I did this. So, well, thank you so much, Andy. I appreciate it. And we’ll talk about trucks next time. Take care. Bye.

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: That sounds great, Dave. Take care.

Dave Mowitz: I will close this up. Thank you.