Eric Halfman
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
I don't know. I don't know that I've prepared an answer, the proper answer for that one.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
But it is, it's the, I can describe what it is. There you go. It's the gateway. It's the foundational piece with integrated technology that unlocks all the value that Michael was talking about from a tillage perspective. And as you see in our booth today, a lot of the other large ag equipment that has been advanced technologies, none of that's possible without driven advanced boundaries.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
So we're trying to make it easy, right? We always try to make things easy with integrated technology. And we also, you know, anybody could boundary map with a tractor. They might do that on a planter pass. But it's really important to be doing it with equipment that's designed to do it, right? Not Corey's Geo Metro. Yeah, that would be the Gator Utility Vehicle.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
And this year, it's at Farm Progress, it's a brand new Gator Utility Vehicle. So we've launched our XUV 845 and our XUV 875 gas and diesel. Full-size crossover machine that, with integrated technology... air conditioning on a day like today, or if it was this hot after fall harvest. What a great place to be.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Yeah, absolutely. So if you think the evolution of a truck, the Gator kind of, you know, is oftentimes compared to a pickup truck. So you think of the evolution of truck from two-wheel drive to four-wheel drive, from non-power steering to power steering, to cabs, even in the evolution of agriculture, all of a sudden we have a cab.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
We put a cab on a Gator utility vehicle, a crossover utility vehicle, and now you have air conditioning and heat. It's a portable office for our producers to really get a lot of things done.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Our customers often tell us they spend more time in that piece of equipment than any other piece of equipment on the farm. So it needs to be right for them.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Within the walls of John Deere, we say our gator utility vehicles fit within – almost every production system. So if you think of any type of environment, property, like food plot development, land management, it's super important to keep up with the crops that they're growing. Crops like clover or alfalfa to feed a herd for herd management.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
And you can utilize a gator utility vehicle to do a lot of that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Yeah, if you're familiar with a Frontier brand that we have from an implement perspective perspective, many available here for display at Farm Progress. We do have some tillage tools. They already beat me to it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
So we're in a sweet spot, most certainly, for our Gator utility vehicles and diesel, yes. So just need diesel fuel. Hey, that's good news.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
So, so I think when you look at Gator utility vehicles, most certainly in the new models, uh, the integrated technology is that, is that step in that direction? Um, We know there's a ton of boundaries to be mapped yet, driven map to unlock value.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
We haven't talked about sprayers, but I've talked to a ton of customers this week about the amount of time they save when a sprayer pulls in a field when a boundary is in that field. I mean, it's amazing. And then technology that's on that sprayer, like ExactApply, the value they get out of that is certainly unlocked.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Absolutely. Or what I'd really like you to do is get a Green Star integrated gator, brand new gator, and bring your monitor display from your your other equipment and carry it in, bring it into the gator and utilize that. So it kind of can go both ways.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Yeah, I think from a gator utility perspective, the amount of time that we spend with customers and development I think is really important. Spending time... And letting them use equipment. We certainly do our own R&D, spend a lot of investment dollars in R&D, but customers are a part of our R&D as well.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
So that's huge because as soon as we launch a product, our customers are going to tell us what we missed, right? So let's get our customers engaged in that process so we don't miss, right? Or we might still miss, let's be honest, but we can't put everything that customers want. There's things that we need to do. But, you know, I think that's a really valid point.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Here's a warm water for you. Here's a warm water. Yeah, if you checked out that 845R in the display area over there, you would have seen the boundary mapping aid, but then you would have also seen a tow bar. So we've got some prototype stuff that we're talking about. We're at this show. We're talking to customers, getting feedback from them. Hey, what do you like? Where should this go? Right.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Do you see this? Clearly where Mike was just talking about autonomous tillage. Awesome. May still need a person to be checking in on that stuff around. Yep. Yep.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Yeah. It all, it all pieces together. That's great.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Gotcha. The industry really deserves for things to be easy and for what we put in from an effort perspective to make things comfortable. Comfortable on them physically, but then also professionally.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
All right. I'll start. It's the Gateway Gator. Maybe it's the Gateway Gator. There you go. So calendar. Got to live by your calendar, right? I live my life with a calendar. And before I take the next vacation, I have the next vacation scheduled. Oh, cool. And that is with family, right? That's not my alone time. Workations, yeah. Married over 20 years with two kids. Well, it must be working.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Try to prioritize that. I've always tried to do that. It's tough. It's not easy for any of us to juggle that. I'm not a good vacationer, but that could be something I could use. My son is a senior in high school, so he's finishing his high school career off this year. And I tell him, work hard. So you can play hard. Yep. And the only way you can play hard is if you work hard. Awesome.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
Yeah, gator utility vehicles.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
You want to start or you want me to? Sure, I'll start. I just...
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
So from a go-to-market perspective, we have the fun and exciting opportunity to take what our engineers and our product marketing teams have done from a developmental perspective, a lot of testing, a lot of customer building, customer requirements, and also see what they've improved on. from existing products. We get to help launch those products. That's super fun.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
We do that with the support of our dealerships, but then, again, also internal publications like our websites and fun stuff like this as well.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Innovative Grain Drying Solutions and Big Equipment Advancements
There you go. Yes.