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CapitalPress.com
October 6, 2017
Tractors, combines must be ready when it’s ‘go time’
By BRENNA WIEGAND
For the Capital Press
Courtesy Photos
Older combines stand at the ready at Alan Shaff Farms near
Hillsboro, Ore. They are proof that well-maintained equipment can
enjoy a long, productive life.
Farmers in the Midwest
chuckle at their Western
counterparts, asking how
a machine used less than a
month out of the year gets
worn down so quickly.
While tractors normally
have a lengthy work season,
in Oregon’s Willamette Val-
ley most combines will run
two, maybe three weeks out
of the year.
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generally pretty short,” said
Eric Stritzke, general man-
ager of Linn Benton Tractor
in Silverton, Ore. “That ma-
chine being parked, even in a
building, is harder on all the
seals, hoses and everything
than if it were being used.”
The narrow harvest win-
dow and its variables mean a
breakdown can be critical.
“They use them hard and
any time you have downtime
it is extremely expensive in
the grand scheme of things,”
Stritzke said. “In this day and
age labor for absolutely any
operation is a huge expense
so if you have a combine or
a tractor down you may have
an operator down, a truck
driver that’s not being pro-
ductive and it’s just a vicious
cycle. Also, any of the mod-
ern farm equipment can get
pretty deadly pretty quickly
if it’s not operating right or
is not operated in a correct
manner.
“When I was turning
wrenches I was always look-
ing for what might fail,” he
said. “Downtime you lose
money but safety you lose
lives.”
While the workings of
a combine can seem over-
whelmingly
complicated,
boiled down to basics they’re
pretty straightforward ma-
chines.
“There are a lot of great
mechanics out there but very
few have been taught the
basic functions of how one
part interacts with another,”
Stritzke said. “You can’t typ-
ically take a truck mechanic
and throw him at a combine
or tractor and vice versa.”
The rapid advances in
technology over the past 30
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Brothers Cole and Spencer Stritzke explore the ins and outs of
large machinery at Linn Benton Tractor in Silverton, Ore. To fill
the increasing need for mechanics and technicians for modern
machinery, their father Eric, general manager, says it is necessary
to reach out to the younger generation with encouragement and
education.
to 40 years is putting a mon-
key wrench into maintenance
and repair.
“With the newest com-
bines and tractors, you’ve
got all the computerized
electronics in addition to all
the belts, chains, bearings
and sheet metal and it takes
much more of a technician to
understand how those elec-
tronics work with the base
machine,” he said. “You can
shut down a $200,000 com-
bine because of a $2 sensor.”
Electronic
capabilities
have created new gaps in the
industry and a shortage of
people to fill them. For in-
stance, if a tractor operator
rides the clutch for a certain
period of time, in some cases
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the dealership gets an email
informing them of the issue.
They in turn are expected by
the manufacturer to notify
the customers.
The high-tech machines
also spell opportunity for the
next generation of mechan-
ics.
“We need to start looking
at our middle school and high
school teenagers and groom-
ing them to fill these gaps;
providing them the college
educations,” Stritzke said.
“As we all know it’s tough-
er and tougher to find people
that want to do physical labor
and modern young techni-
cians are a rare commodi-
ty because not only do they
have the physical side of it
but they also need to be a
computer technician.
“There are a number of ag
mechanic programs through-
out the country but it’s get-
ting tougher and tougher to
find individuals that are in-
terested in those programs,”
he added. “That’s where we
need to be engaging our-
selves.”