The service and parts that Bertoli Farm Machinery offers is why Seymour grain grower Richard Stecher, of Stecher Ag, has stayed with the Shepparton business for 15 years.
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Mr Stecher, who is also a hay contractor, said his preferred machinery brand was Krone — another reason for his longstanding relationship with Bertoli Farm Machinery.
"In our hay contracting business we’ve had Krone mowers and rakes for 15 years and we've always bought them at Bertoli's,'' he said.
"It's probably their service and their parts. They have good parts back-up.
"The Krone gear has been really good — that’s probably a big part of it. They have a lot of Krone gear that’s been good and the amount of parts they carry is really good.
"As far as the length of the relationship, they have helped us over the years with some things ... like getting us mowers in a hurry when we’ve had a couple of major incidents."
One of Mr Stecher's favourite machines is the Krone TC 500 mower conditioner.
"The beauty of this mower is that it packs up to 2.5m transport width, which is the only one that you can get that does it," Mr Stecher said.
"So it’s a 5m cut and 2.5m transport width, which is really good, and then it's got the steel rollers in it for conditioning."
In terms of the season ahead, Mr Stecher said it was sitting "on a knife's edge" but he was more optimistic than some other farmers he has talked to.
"I think there is a fair bit of volatility in the market at the moment," he said.
"There’s people that think it's not going to rain again and that there’s going to be a lot of big crops cut for hay, and that’s probably going to have a fairly big impact on the hay market and grain market.
"But I think, in reality, we are only one or two good rains off it being the other way. If we can get a couple of inches of rain between now and the end of October, that will set us up pretty well."
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