The crop might only be going in the ground now but South Australian New Holland dealer Vater Machinery is urging farmers to book pre-season inspections to ensure they are ready and equipped for harvest in 2024.
Vater Machinery dealer principal Roger Vater knows downtime from machinery breakdowns or lack of replacement parts is something farmers cannot afford at harvest time.
That's why he is urging farmers to book pre-season inspections 'the moment they stop the machines in the field'.
"Demand for pre-season inspections, servicing, and out of season servicing is ramping up across our service centres at Saddleworth, Kadina, and Nuriootpa, ahead of tillage and seeding," Mr Vater said.
"Once we get into August, we will get an influx of new machines, combines and header fronts, as such we'll get busy building and pre-delivering machines, new machines for harvest, as well as refurbishing trading machines.
"Our service departments have so much work ahead that we want to be able to accommodate as many customers as we can.
"We start our pre-season program for combines immediately after harvest from December, so we can get the work scheduled. But it's never too late to get in touch with us.
"The earlier we do the work the better chance we've got of avoiding delays. It means we can get parts organised, schedule servicing, and keep our customers' machines optimal for the harvest and manage our business better."
Vater Machinery has been focused on growing the service side of its business across the past three years, establishing a technical training centre at its Saddleworth branch to train the next generation of apprentices.
"We know skills shortages have been an issue right across the agricultural service industry over the last few years, so we made the decision in 2021 to establish the Vater Training Centre to deliver in-house training for our apprentices," Mr Vater said.
"We also employed our own trainer who can dedicate 100 per cent of his time delivering specialist training on the products we sell and service.
"We're training 23 apprentices, and our first tranche are now in their third year, so we're still another 12 months before they are fully qualified. Our third-year apprentices are quite valuable, they've learned a lot about the machines, and can work alongside our qualified technicians on high level jobs under supervision.
"This has really increased our capacity to support our customers across the Mid North, Yorke Peninsula and Barossa Valley regions."
Fourth generation farmer Peter McPharlin, who grows wheat, barley, export hay, canola, and lentils at his Balaklava farm, Riversyde Park, has already had his machines serviced after being contacted by Vater Machinery.
In conjunction with his brother's operation Lysander Farming, he operates seven New Holland tractors, including a T9, two T8s, a T7, a T3 for slashing as well as older 7060 and TM165 models. He also operates a New Holland CR8.90, and a CR9.90 in partnership with another farmer in a district whose season begins later in the year.
"We've been dealing with Vater Machinery for over 25 years, and they really look after us well," Mr McPharlin said.
"We had a reasonable season that finished in the middle of November 2023 due to the dry finish to the season, and we got good quality and yields.
"Vater were in touch with us early to do on farm pre-inspection and servicing. They have a good look at our machines for any things we might miss during our own services.
"With harvest machinery it's good to be proactive to keep on top of things rather than breaking down and then having to fix it, plus a bearing failure can cause fire. It is extremely important for us to have a pre-season inspection and service."
