Tips for Farm Equipment Maintenance

Efficiency and safety go hand-in-hand with farming. Both of these ensure prosperous and successful farming seasons year after year. Maintaining farm equipment is crucial to your farm running smoothly, and keeping your family, employees, and yourself safe. If you have a system to check your equipment and you never cut corners, you’ll be sure to have another fruitful year.

Create a System
You probably know everything concerning your machinery you need to check and double-check, but can you trust you won’t forget something? Creating a physical checklist makes your maintenance system more concrete, and you will probably be more diligent about it if you’re checking it off a list. Consider the following to add to your routine checks for your tractor:

• Batteries, specifically looking for corrosion
• Tire pressure and tread
• Fluid levels
• Air filters, clear or replace
• Tighten clamps, fittings, and seals

New Equipment
Whether you are using new equipment or new-to-you equipment, you’ll need to know the ins and outs of it to use it safely. Even with new equipment, you will want to perform preventative maintenance to keep it running smoothly. If you’re planning on purchasing or renting new equipment this year, check out the following tips.

Read the Owner’s Manual
While owner’s manuals may be the old school “terms and conditions”, they do serve an important purpose. A manual for machinery teaches you how the equipment is built, and therefore informs you about how to operate and repair it. If you’ve been farming for a while, you can operate any brand of equipment just fine, but each brand and type of machine has its own quirks. The owner’s manual can teach you how to avoid missteps, thus saving you time and possibly money.

Order Spare Parts
You guessed it, we’re here to talk about supply chain issues. With availability and shipping problems, you will want to order your spare parts for your equipment now. When choosing what to order, think, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. This will keep your operation going strong, even when there’s a bump in the road.

Reducing FrictionFriction is created when things are not going right. With machinery, this applies both literally and figuratively. You can reduce friction by power washing your equipment after use and lubricating chains and cables. This is where the owner’s manual will come in handy: you need to wash and lubricate according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Doing this will keep your equipment running and keep you on schedule for the season.

Routine Maintenance
Most likely, your equipment will have some kind of warranty validated by routine maintenance checks. These may need to be performed by a mechanic, and depending on your location, this might be difficult to schedule. If needed, schedule these ahead of time to avoid any warranty issues. You will also avoid mechanics being unavailable altogether if you schedule them early.

Performing maintenance on your machinery will save you time and money. Making the effort to do this can keep your operation
on schedule.