Early Season Outlook On The Farm Equipment Market

What should farmers be thinking about in terms of equipment this year?

“The last year was really defined by murkiness," said Andy Campbell, director of insights for Tractor Zoom.  "A lot of buyer hesitancy out there. It slowed down sales off of dealers’ lots. And now, we're at least to a point where it might not look great in terms of a horizon, it's clear, and that clarity is bringing a little bit more consistency into what we're seeing with the economy of this piece of equipment.  With row crop tractors, specifically, I do think they're a bit of a sleeper right now.  It's really because I think they're expensive, and they're sitting on dealers’ lots.  There's an incentive for them to move it, but unlike in ‘24, there were way too many of them. Dealers were incentivized to move them through auction, and they did, and they took some pretty big hits.  Now the sentiment is, let's hold on to these things. Let's have meaningful conversations with farmers, and let's make those sales and push those out through the retail channel.”

While retail sales are still weaker, Campbell said auction values are getting stronger.

"What we're seeing with real crop tractors is exactly an auction that's strengthening right now.  So, the auction market is actually getting a little bit stronger than we saw in late ’25, but the retail values are still dropping a little bit," Campbell said.  "So, there's your opportunity to potentially go talk to a dealer and then make that deal. You can get a warranty.  You can get financing.  There are a lot of other incentives that go along with that, but that's where I think the row crop tractor bright spot is going to be up until the springtime.  That's when I think the seller incentives might start to fade a little bit, and the little bit of oversupply we're dealing with right now, that's going to start to wane.”

Campbell added the sprayer market has been "fascinating".

“We've obviously been going through a tough time with the overall farm economy.  A lot of equipment values are down, but not so much with the sprayers, and I think that has a lot more to do with their immediate ROI," he said.  "There was a lot of benefit to spraying late in the season last year, especially on the corn and the fungicide, and so that helped prop up values to where auction values were pretty steady. Dealer retail values actually were rising a little bit, but I think there's still too much oversupply in the market. It's not going to last forever, because the spring, up until March and April, is your main buying season there, and so that oversupply is going to get whittled down.  There's not a lot of new coming into the system. And so, if you're looking for sprayers, I'd say you've got about four months to really go approach dealerships, find that make-model you're looking for, talk to them, and then proceed with the deal there.” 

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