Takeaways

  • To compete with larger manufacturers, we’re always seeking ways to be more innovative. 
  • Hauling a strip-till unit with a JCB FastTrack tractor 2,100 at 35 miles per hour led to big savings compared to shipping the unit to this year’s Commodity Classic.
  • It’s always a great adventure and fun to get off the Interstates and see many of the rural parts of America.

Lynx Ag is an agricultural implement manufacturer that specializes in producing strip-till equipment in Churdan, Iowa. To compete with the larger manufacturers, we’re always seeking ways to be more innovative in our approach, whether it is at a farm show or working out in the field. 

As we started planning for exhibiting at this year’s Commodity Classic in San Antonio, Texas, the idea came up to pull a 12-row 30-inch strip-till toolbar with a 12-ton fertilizer hopper behind a tractor instead of paying to have it hauled on a semitruck. For travel, the strip-rig and cart had a transport width of 15.5-feet.

high-speed JCB tractor

Heading out with a high-speed JCB tractor pulling a strip-till unit on a backroads journey through five states.

Big Transportation Savings

Some quick math showed we could potentially save almost $25,000 and it would only end up taking an extra 24 hours to accomplish the task. So that’s what we did. We hooked the strip-till machine up to our JCB 8330 FastTrack tractor and headed South. 

It was certainly an adventure driving a tractor through Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. My 19-year-old son, Elijah, and I took turns driving the tractor on the 30-hour trip each way.  We began our journey to San Antonio on Wednesday morning and arrived on Thursday night.  Some 1,050 miles in a tractor sounds like a lot, but really, it's just like working a couple of days in the field. However, we always had a gas station nearby at all times for needed snacks needed.  

We set up the machine on Saturday before the show opened, after spending some time in Corpus Christi the previous day.  

On Sunday, we left our truck and the JCB tractor in a parking lot and flew home. Our national sales manager, AJ Adkins, and dealers Erbes Repair, Red Stone Ag, the NuAg Technology group and Z&J Farms manned our Commodity Classic exhibit that featured the strip-till rig on Wednesday through Friday at the event. On Friday, Elijah and I flew back on Friday to San Antonio to begin the trek home.  

Overall, the entire trip was an uneventful tractor ride. It was a much more relaxing trip than earlier JCB tractor trips we’ve made to Buffalo, N.Y., and Decatur, Ill. 

“It was an adventure driving a tractor at 35 miles per hour through Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas…”

It is always fun to get off the Interstates and see many of the rural parts of the USA. We are truly blessed to live in this country and to be given the opportunity to take a slow drive across it.