While everyone around him is buying high-horsepower articulated tractors, Darren Bone believes he is far better off with his 390hp (291kW), front-wheel-assist Fendt 939 Vario. He argues it pulls just as well or better than the artics, burns through a hell of a lot less fuel and, when the sowing season is over, he has a tractor suitable for hooking up to other implements and extending its usefulness on the property.
“I can’t afford to have a $300,000 to $400,000 tractor just sitting in the shed doing nothing for nine or 10 months of the year,” he says. “It just doesn’t make economic sense.”
Bone, who crops about 2,500 to 3,000 acres (1,011 to 1,214 hectares) of cereals a year at Nhill depending on rotations, strikes me as the sort…
