At the Farm Gate: Repair, Maintenance Keep the Farm Running
Dad lifts the side panel of the combine to expose the gears, bearings, pulleys, chains and belts. And every single time, I’m in awe of its complexity and how anyone can understand how to engineer the machine or repair and maintain it.
I’m thankful for the genius minds who designed a combine that “combined” the functions previously accomplished by multiple pieces of equipment, horses and open-station tractors. I’m especially grateful to the mechanically inclined brains on our farm who can fix and maintain it.
Socially accepted advice tells us to spend time on what’s important, and our farm commits a significant amount of time on repair and maintenance. In fact, my son has an FFA recordbook project with 1,000 hours focused on the subject area.
Repairs generally reduce costs compared to replacement. Maintenance intends to prevent repairs and costly “machine down” situations in the busy seasons. That strategy works most of the time to provide risk mitigation, a fancy way of saying we want to minimize the risk of breakdowns, accidents, delayed field operations, extra man hours and mental stress.
Equipment cycles through the shop about 60 days before its intended use in the field. This winter, our shop crew disassembled and replaced worn parts on every row unit on the planters, changed oils and filters in the tractors that pull them, and checked over the sprayers by early March.
On each item, they look for small problems that could morph into big ones. That shop time soon will extend to each combine. Each head attachment. The grain carts. The tractors again. Semi trucks and grain trailers. By winter, the cycle resets.
In all, our farm keeps repair and maintenance records for about 100 items, from lots of little equipment like leaf blowers and chainsaws to 500-horsepower tractors – anything that has an engine, tires, grease points or wearable parts. We DIY as much as possible and call in a technician when the repair exceeds our abilities.
My dad and experienced employees teach the next generation shop skills as their interests and time allow. My son starts a typical weekday leaving home at 6:45 a.m. to train at a college welding class to improve his repair skills. Then, he goes to high school and afterward focuses on repair and maintenance in the farm shop when we’re not in the field.
He plans to be among the next mechanically minded who keep the farm running.
About the author: Joanie Stiers farms with her family in West Central Illinois, where they raise corn, soybeans, hay, beef cattle, backyard chickens and farm kids.
