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Harvest stays on track thanks to tracks

A South Dakota farmer is able to continue harvesting after investing in tracks for his combine.  Louis Nigg is 20 miles from North Dakota and 4 miles from Minnesota and has been dealing with a lot of rain and wet ground. He says, “We started harvesting beans with the wheels on, and did some work for the neighbors and got stuck a few times, and then we got rained out again, and I thought hey, I might try and find some tracks.”

Nigg tells Brownfield he was running 520-42 duals on his John Deere 680 combine with a 40-foot draper head, so he was already concerned about approaching the tire limits and leaving some ruts or getting stuck, so he placed the order. “In the back of your mind, you’re always thinking, ‘Can I make it?’ You know, you’re always kind of stressed out a little wondering if you’re going to make it through that spot, and, ‘Should I turn around?’ Now you put the tracks on, it’s kind of like going on vacation. You see water and you really don’t care if it’s two-foot deep or two inches deep, you drive straight through it.”

Nigg farms 3200 acres of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa and does custom harvesting on 800 acres for his neighbors with one combine.  He says since getting tracks, some of his neighbors have been seeing his success and ordering their own.

Nigg says once the decision was made, it didn’t take long to put his new tracks in service. “I called my local tire dealer and he found some tracks way down in Arkansas that we had to get shipped up, and I think making the decision to buy them to getting them put on only took five days, so I’m kind of blessed they found me some and got them on in a timely manner.”