Why Used Specialty Machinery Is Trending Right Now

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:56:35 GMT

Right now is the time to sell used hay equipment and versatile loader tractors at auction. That’s because farmer interest in both of those machine segments has likely hit its ceiling for the year, according to a recent episode of the “Moving Iron” podcast.

Another trend in the market is spiking farmer demand for economically priced machines.

“You’re looking at that $50,000 to $150,000 [range], that’s like the peak thing right now,” says Casey Seymour, host of the podcast. ”And you know, if you look at the cattle side of the business, there’s a lot of cash out there right now and a lot of things moving.”

With fall auction season right around the corner, Machinery Pete thinks dealers should monitor the volume of units that flow into the auction world, because he thinks the used market can go either way at this point.

“I wonder if there’s going to be some dealers that wish they would have sold at the end of the first quarter, or early second quarter,” Pete says. “We’ll see how the market holds up for the rest of the summer here.”

Seymour expects we’ll see a lot of auctions booked for November and December, and Pete agrees.

“Q4 has been an optimal time since 2003 or 2004 basically, with the Bush tax cuts that happened so long ago,” Pete says. “Last year was only the second year I saw a dip in the fourth quarter, and the only reason it dipped was sheer volume. That’s why I still think it pays to steer clear of when everybody else is selling.”

And all of you classic tractor fans out there will just love this fun little story that Machinery Pete shared on Facebook:

The rest of the episode

Rich Posson, business cycles analyst, Critical Point, joins the podcast to talk about implications of a recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation report and Federal Reserve meeting.

“The CPI came out at 2.7% this morning annualized, and that was shocking to Wall Street. First they bought and then sold, and now they’re back buying today under the idea that it’s lower than what we thought – therefore lower interest rates are coming,” he says. “But that 2.7% was actually unchanged (from last month). Years ago I learned from watching USDA data that when the government gives you an unchanged number, it basically means they don’t know what to do next.”

Aaron Fintel, used equipment specialist, 21^st Century Equipment, also joins this week to talk about how unique, specialty used farm equipment, like sugar beet harvesters, dry bean Pickett headers and hay steamers, are all “right on the cusp” of taking off on the High Plains.

“My biggest thing with keeping machinery moving is ‘Lot Rot’. On the sugar beet equipment, that’s the beauty – it’s nonexistent,” Fintel says. “In that specialty equipment (market) it’s pretty much ‘We’re upgrading to get bigger.’ or ‘We’re upgrading because we have to.’ That’s a world where a bigger percentage of your trade-ins are past their (useful) life.”

Head over to YouTube to watch the full episode. Hit the “Thumbs Up” button to “Like” the video and click on the “Subscribe” button to get a notification when a new episode drops.

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2025 Top Producer of the Year Marc Arnusch Looks for Success Beyond Commodity Farming

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:50:46 GMT

As he checks last year’s crops and thinks about the future, Colorado farmer Marc Arnusch and his team are excited about what’s ahead.

“At the end of the day, this is about family,” stresses Arnusch. “It’s about growing an operation. It’s about growing a community. It’s about helping others lead and that’s been the greatest reward.”

Getting to those rewards has been a journey for this operation located in Prospect Valley about 35 miles northeast of Denver.

“My family immigrated to the United States in 1952 from Austria,” he explains.

It was the sugar beet that lured them to the Colorado climate and it was a key part of the farm until the late 2010s.

“I couldn’t control my market and I couldn’t control my destiny. There were so many variables that I had no impact on,” Arnusch says.

His wife Jill remembers, “I was doing all the finances and telling him we just we can’t do this anymore. I was telling him that this is uncomfortable for me, but I don’t feel right about this. We’ve got to change. We’ve got to move.”

Ultimately, Jill’s warnings won out and Marc broke the news.

“That was hard when I had to tell my dad that I grew my last sugar beet crop,” he said. “You can imagine he wasn’t very happy about that.”

Like so many others, it was one of the family decisions Marc and Jill made together. Early on, there were plenty of thin margins.

“I wanted to raise our son at home and we made it work,” Jill says. “You can make a pound of hamburger stretch for three meals for three people if you really try hard.”

Diversification Becomes Key
Today, they grow seed wheat, seed barley, grains for the craft beer and spirits industries, black-eye peas, alfalfa and food grade corn.

“We grow a lot of things that my grandparents and my father would never even consider,” Arnusch says. “Growing a grain for a distillery or taking on a new crop like a black-eyed pea that had never even been grown in this region of Colorado, there’s certainly some risk but there’s also the reward.”

It’s a way to control their own destiny and de-commodititze a commodity. Diversification has been the key to weathering the challenges of Colorado.

“We don’t always get along with Mother Nature,” Arnusch says. “Hailstorms are frequent here in this area, and we’re a very dry climate.”

Which is why they’re constantly looking for other ways to de-risk their business. It’s a lesson they learned a few years back while growing onions.

“We were growing 600 to 700 acres a year, and we acquired a packing shed where we shipped our crop to over 30 different states and four foreign countries,” Arnusch says.

However, he soon found access to steady labor was a constant challenge.

“There was a morning where I came out into the field and I had 250 workers helping transplant a crop out of Arizona into a field here in Colorado,” Arnusch says. “The following day I had nine.”

Join Them, But Do It Better
Despite the investments and the market, he walked away from the onion business because he couldn’t control those variables. Instead, he found other ways to supplement the farm beyond the field. Good snow melt and a good aquifer means excess water is available for other uses during certain times of year.

“Weld County has more oil and gas wells in it than all of Saudi Arabia combined and part of that development process requires a large amount of water,” Arnusch says. “We had it in the right place, in the right time, in close proximity to where it needed to be delivered and so Ag Water Alliance was born.”

It was a collection of farmers selling water together to the oil and gas industry and that helped bulletproof the Arnusch balance sheet. They also started a captive insurance company to help take catastrophic risk off the table. Soon, they’ll continue to expand on their family motto, “We Grow Things,” as they look to grow their community.

“We’re getting ready to develop my grandfather’s farm,” Arnusch says. “I would imagine you’ve not heard too many farmers say they plan to build on top of their family’s legacy.”

Jill adds, “When New York investors and people from overseas start calling you every day and asking if your farm is for sale because it is the most prized piece of property in town, we decided if you can’t beat them, maybe you join them and do it better.”

The goal is to bring resources, services and amenities back to their small town that were common just 50 years ago. Things like healthcare, assisted living and a place for new businesses.

“Rather than just selling the property and letting somebody else develop that farm, we’re doing something that’s very hard,” Arnusch says. “We’re going to do this ourselves. We’re going to do it with a purpose and it’s about putting people and our community first.”

With their son and his new family by their side along with a newly hired farm manager, the future is bright for the Arnusch operation.

“Farming goes beyond just the seed that you plant in the field, the crop that you grow, the equipment that you have,” Arnusch says. “It’s about investing in tomorrow. Our future at this farm is one built on tomorrow.”

They recognize all of it is a gift for them to steward.

“If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t really know your business and you can make good decisions on bad numbers and bad advice,” Jill says. “It can all go away very quickly.”

This Colorado operation may have faced adversity, but the willingness to reinvent the farm is why they’ve been named the 2025 Top Producer of the Year.

Beets

Why Used Specialty Machinery Is Trending Right Now

The rest of the episode

2025 Top Producer of the Year Marc Arnusch Looks for Success Beyond Commodity Farming