“After two years with very high soil moisture during harvest time there has been a shift towards using mostly crawlers,” said George Stanson, business manager for Case IH and Steyr equipment for Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia.
“Because crawler tractors and harvesters were the only ones that helped people given the amount of rainfall during harvest this year and last year. Now the trend is to go for big 620-700 HP tractors.”
The Case tractors are available in Romania via Titan Machinery Romania.
The US tractor brand sells machinery ranging from 65 to 700 HP and the most powerful units are fitted with crawlers to allow them to navigate difficult terrain. Prices range from EUR30,000 to EUR300,000.
“You have to go in right after harvesting and keep that moisture in the soil and a tractor on wheels has trouble coping. Many farmers have realized that the solution, especially in Western Romania, Moldavia, Timisoara, Arad, Baragan, is crawlers and they invest in them.”
Some areas resembled rice paddies at harvest time, and one needs crawlers to go in there, Stanson said.
Sales of tractors are subject to weather and trend of crop prices and profitability. Therefore the company sells more powerful tractors one year and less powerful in another. In a very dry year, it sells medium power tractors, George Stanson added.
“In a year with good prices, farmers start from 160 to 180 HP and go as far as to 250 HP. If they get good prices on everything then they make a massive investment because they are certain they will get their money.”
Case delivered 40 crawler tractors in the four countries this year. The tractors were all Quadtrac, which come with a price tag of about EUR300,000.
“We will launch the Magnum Roadtrack model this year, which has wheels in front and crawlers in the back. It’s the only tractor in the world that uses this format. We want to sell 60 to 70 crawler tractors in the region next year.”
Sales of tractors reach about 2,000 units in Romania every year, according to his estimates, and the fleet of tractors in this country numbers about 165,000 units, more than 100,000 of which are the old Universal 650 made by Tractorul Brasov.
Case, New Holland and Steyr, part of Italy’s CNH Industrial, sell about 700 units a year in Romania, with New Holland as the top seller followed by Case and Steyr, the executive added.
Market leader is US-held John Deere, followed by New Holland, which accounted for 25% of the market with 450 tractors delivered last year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)