He replaced his entire tractor fleet with Massey Ferguson machines. Days later, his longtime John Deere dealer told him not to come back. For years, he had bought green equipment. Tractors. Combines. Parts. Service contracts. Then repair delays started costing more than the machines themselves. A failed sensor could stop a tractor. A backordered component could freeze an entire field operation. So he made a decision nobody expected. He sold the Deere fleet. And switched everything to Massey Ferguson. The local dealer took it personally. No parts support. No favors. No emergency help for the few older Deere machines still on the farm. Neighbors said he had burned the most important bridge in the county. Then harvest season arrived. One machine went down. Then another nearby farm lost a tractor too. But his shop had stocked parts. His mechanics understood the systems. And his Massey fleet kept moving while other operators waited for service calls. That was when the argument stopped being about brand loyalty. It became about who actually controlled whether the farm could keep working. The dealer thought cutting him off would make him regret leaving John Deere. Instead, it proved exactly why he had switched in the first place.
By June 14, 2023, Rick Hollander’s family had worked the land in south-central Nebraska for three generations. His grandfather broke it with a Ford 8N. His father expanded the operation with International harvesters. Rick built it into a 2,400-acre farm of winter wheat and registered Angus cattle, twelve miles outside McCook, between the Republican River Valley and plains that turned gold every June.
The farm ran on John Deere green. Nine tractors, two S-series combines, sprayers, implements and other equipment added up to about $3.2 million. Some machines were financed, most had been bought outright over two decades. Every service record came from the same dealership in McCook: Huxley and Sons Equipment, a family business that had sold Deere machinery across southwest Nebraska since 1971.
Rick’s family had helped build that relationship. His father bought Huxley’s first 4020 in 1973. Rick bought his first tractor there in 2009. When the dealership expanded in 2015, a bronze plaque bearing Rick’s name went up in the showroom lobby. He hadn’t asked for one. Tom Huxley, the owner’s son and general manager, insisted.
“Your family,” Tom had told him, “this place doesn’t exist without guys like you.”
Rick believed him until the second day of wheat harvest.
The weather was clear, humidity low, and the day offered the kind of fourteen-hour window that could define an entire season. Rick was running his 2020 John Deere S780 through a 340-acre section north of the highway, cutting at 4.2 miles per hour. The grain tank filled every eleven minutes.
Then the combine lurched.
It wasn’t a minor hiccup. The entire drivetrain seized. The header stopped mid-cut, and an alarm screamed across the cab display. Rick shut down the engine, climbed out and opened the side panel.
The CVT transmission had destroyed itself. Metal fragments and fluid filled the housing; shrapnel had cracked a section that wasn’t supposed to break. It looked like the kind of failure that came not from ordinary wear, but from a defect that had slipped through quality control and waited for the worst possible moment.
Rick called Huxley and Sons. Tom didn’t answer. The service manager picked up.
“We’ll get someone out there tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow? I’ve got 1,800 acres of wheat standing. I need this fixed today.”
“Rick, we’re slammed. Everyone’s harvesting. I’ll bump you up the list, but it’s going to be tomorrow at the earliest.”
The technician arrived twenty-six hours later. He took one look, whistled and shook his head.
“Yeah, that’s cooked. You’re looking at a full transmission replacement.”
“How long for parts?”
“Three weeks if we’re lucky. Could be six.”
Rick stared at him.
“Six weeks?”
“It’s a specialized unit. Comes from Germany. Deere’s backlogged.”
“What’s it cost?”
The technician checked his tablet.
“$47,300, plus labor.”
Rick felt the air go out of him. Nearly $47,000, and three to six weeks without the combine in the middle of harvest. The weather window wouldn’t wait. Wheat lost value every day it sat in the field.
He called Tom directly.
“Tom, I need you to do something. I need this expedited. I don’t care what it costs. I’ll pay rush shipping. I’ll pay overtime. I need that combine running.”
Tom’s voice was sympathetic, professional and distant.
“Rick, I hear you, but we don’t control the supply chain. Deere says three weeks minimum. I can’t make parts appear.”
“You’ve got pull. You’ve been a platinum dealer for fifteen years. Call someone.”
“I already did. They told me the same thing.”
Rick stood in his shop with the phone pressed to his ear, staring at the bronze plaque Huxley and Sons had given him when he bought his first tractor.
“So what am I supposed to do?” he asked.
“Rent a combine. We’ve got a used S760 you could lease for the season.”
“At what rate?”
“Three hundred fifteen dollars an hour.”
Rick did the math. He had 1,800 acres left. At his usual pace, the rental would run about 140 hours, or $44,100. That was nearly the cost of replacing the transmission, except the repair would preserve an asset. The rental would simply drain money from the season.
“I’ll think about it,” Rick said.
He hung up and began searching for other options.
That night, he sat at his kitchen table with a laptop and a beer he never drank. He watched videos, read forums and looked through performance reports for brands he had never seriously considered: Case IH, New Holland, Fendt and Massey Ferguson.
Massey Ferguson kept appearing, not because of advertising, but because farmers described what the machines did. Australian growers wrote about running Ideal combines through canola at speeds that seemed unlikely. Operators in Ukraine praised the simplicity of the threshing system. North Dakota wheat farmers posted fuel numbers that made Deere look inefficient, along with accounts of parts availability that didn’t depend on a German supply chain.
Rick opened a dealer locator. The closest Massey Ferguson dealer was Johnston Ag in Kearney, eighty-three miles northeast. He had driven past it a hundred times without looking twice.
The next morning, he called. A sales manager named Dale Richter answered with a gravelly voice and the tone of a man who didn’t waste words.
“Hi, I’m looking for information on your Ideal combine line.”
“Are you farming or custom cutting?”
“Farming wheat and cattle. I’ve got a Deere 780 that just blew its transmission. I need a replacement.”
“Rental replacement or a buy replacement?”
Rick hesitated.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Let me make it easier. I’ve got a 2022 Ideal 9 on the lot. Demo unit. Low hours. You want to see it?”
“What’s it cost?”
“$385,000, but we’re motivated. End of quarter. I’ll work with you.”
Rick felt something shift in his chest.
“I’ll be there in two hours.”
The Ideal 9 sat on the Johnston Ag lot in red and silver, looking nothing like the green fleet back home. Dale walked Rick around it and showed him the single-rotor threshing system, simpler than Deere’s twin rotors and built with fewer parts that could fail. He showed him the grain tank, the cab layout and the hydraulic response.
Then he said what stayed with Rick.
“You know the difference between us and Deere? When you call us, we answer. When you need parts, we get them. We don’t make you wait because some algorithm in Iowa says you’re not a priority.”
Rick climbed into the cab and ran his hands over the controls. The layout felt different, tighter, more responsive.
“Can I test it?”
“You can take it home,” Dale said. “Run it through your wheat. If it doesn’t outperform your Deere, bring it back.”
Rick blinked.
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious. I don’t sell machines. I sell proof.”
Rick drove the Ideal 9 to his farm that afternoon. He put it into the same field where the S780 had failed and opened it up.
The Massey Ferguson didn’t merely match the Deere. It outperformed it. It moved faster across the ground, produced a cleaner grain sample and used less fuel per acre. The single-rotor system handled green-stem wheat without slugging. The cab gave Rick enough visibility to work closer to the terraces without second-guessing his line.
He ran the combine for six hours straight. Then he called Dale.
“I want it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, but I want more than that.”
Dale paused.
“I’m listening.”
“I want to replace my whole fleet.”
The silence on the line lasted three seconds.
“Say that again.”
“I’m done with Deere. I want Massey Ferguson tractors. I want another combine. I want everything you’ve got that can replace what I’m running.”
Dale’s voice grew serious.
“Rick, I don’t know what happened between you and your Deere dealer, but switching an entire fleet isn’t something you do on emotion. That’s a $2 million decision.”
“I know exactly what it is. And I’m not doing it on emotion. I’m doing it because I just spent six hours in a machine that works better, costs less and comes from a dealer who doesn’t treat me like I’m lucky to be his customer.”
Dale exhaled.
“All right. Come back tomorrow. Let’s build a plan.”
Over the next fourteen days, Rick did something no one in McCook had seen before. He liquidated his John Deere fleet.
He listed the S780 as-is and disclosed the bad transmission. A custom operator in Kansas bought it for $110,000, about half what it would have been worth running. Rick didn’t care. He sold the backup S690 to a farmer in Colorado. The 8R tractors, the 6M series, the 5-series utility units, the implements and the sprayers all went.
Some equipment went to auction, some through private sales and some to dealers two states away. Used Deere machinery still had value, even when its owner had lost faith in it.
Within ninety days, Rick had cleared $2.7 million. He spent nearly all of it at Johnston Ag.
The new fleet arrived in waves. Two Massey Ferguson Ideal 9 combines stood side by side in the machine shed, red and silver against the rows of equipment Rick had sold. Three MF 8S 265 tractors brought 265 horsepower and continuously variable transmission. Two MF 7S tractors were assigned to loader work and hay season. An MF 5S utility tractor handled cattle feeding and equipment moves.
The fleet came from Johnston Ag. It would be serviced by a dealer eighty-three miles away who had treated Rick as if his time mattered.
By mid-September, the operation looked as though it had been repainted overnight. There was no green left, only red. The entire county noticed.
Tom Huxley noticed, too.
The first sign of trouble came when Rick called Huxley and Sons to order a PTO shaft for an old Deere baler he had kept. It was one of the few green machines he hadn’t sold because it still worked and wasn’t worth replacing.
The parts desk put him on hold for eleven minutes. When someone came back, the voice was clipped.
“Yeah, we don’t have that in stock.”
“Can you order it?”
“It’s discontinued.”
Rick frowned. The baler was still in production.
“It’s a current-production baler. How is the part discontinued?”
“That’s what the system says.”
“Can you check again?”
“I did. It’s not available.”
Rick hung up. The next day, he drove to the dealership, walked into the parts department and asked to speak to the manager. Kurt, a manager he had known for eight years, came out with his arms crossed.
“What can I do for you, Rick?”
“I need a PTO shaft for a 569 baler. Your guy told me it’s discontinued. I know that’s not true.”
Kurt checked the computer and clicked through a few screens.
“Hmm. Yeah, looks like we can get it, but it’s special order now. Four-week lead time.”
“Four weeks for a PTO shaft?”
“Supply-chain issues. You know how it is.”
Rick stared at him.
“Kurt, I’ve bought parts from you for fifteen years. You’ve never made me wait four weeks for a shaft.”
Kurt shrugged.
“Things change.”
Rick understood the message. He left without ordering the shaft and called a supplier in Kansas. They had one in stock. It arrived three days later.
Two weeks after that, a Deere 8R tractor he had kept for finish mowing developed a hydraulic leak. It was a small problem, but he needed a seal kit.
He called Huxley and Sons.
“We can’t schedule you for two weeks,” the service manager said.
“I just need a seal kit. I’ll install it myself.”
“We don’t have it in stock.”
“Can you overnight it?”
“We don’t do rush orders anymore.”
Rick hung up and called a Deere dealer in Kansas. They had the kit and shipped it the same day.
A pattern was forming. Whenever Rick needed something from Huxley and Sons, it was suddenly unavailable, delayed, special-order or backordered. Calls started going to voicemail. Service appointments were pushed back.
He began hearing whispers around town.
“Heard you went full red.”
“Tom Huxley’s not happy about it.”
“You really think those Massey Fergusons are going to hold up?”
Rick didn’t respond. He kept working.
October brought corn harvest. Rick ran both Ideal 9 combines through 800 acres of irrigated corn at 5.1 miles per hour. Grain loss stayed below four percent, and fuel consumption was twenty-two percent better than his old S-series Deeres.
The machines didn’t miss a beat. No breakdowns. No delays. No three-week wait for parts.
When Rick needed a concave adjustment kit, he called Johnston Ag at seven in the morning. Dale had it delivered to the farm by two that afternoon.
“That’s how we do it,” Dale said.
Rick began doing the math. In a normal year, he had spent about $18,000 on parts and service with Huxley and Sons: emergency calls, preventative maintenance, filters, belts and fluids. Now he was spending that money with Johnston Ag and getting faster responses.
Huxley and Sons had lost an $18,000-a-year customer, and the dealership knew it.
In November, Rick attended the McCook Farm Bureau’s monthly meeting in the basement of a community center. About thirty men gathered for coffee and conversation. Tom Huxley was there. He didn’t sit near Rick or acknowledge him.
Halfway through the meeting, during open discussion, Tom stood.
“I just want to say something. There’s been a lot of talk lately about brand loyalty, about who supports local businesses and who doesn’t.”
The room went quiet. Tom didn’t look at Rick, but everyone else did.
“We’ve been here for fifty years,” Tom continued. “We’ve supported this community. We financed guys when banks wouldn’t. We’ve kept people running when parts were scarce. And I think it’s worth remembering that loyalty goes both ways.”
Then he sat down.
Rick felt thirty pairs of eyes on him. He didn’t defend himself or explain what had happened. He drank his coffee and waited for the meeting to end.
Tom wasn’t just angry. He was making Rick a cautionary tale.
December brought the test Rick had been dreading: calving-season preparation. He needed equipment that would run through long days and subzero nights. Tractors would feed cattle and move bedding. A breakdown in that weather could mean dead calves and financial disaster.
The old-timers at the co-op reminded him that the Massey Fergusons had never seen a Nebraska winter.
“Those fancy red tractors work great in August,” one said. “Let’s see how they do in January, when it’s twelve below and the hydraulics freeze.”
Rick didn’t argue. He made sure the MF 8S and 7S tractors were ready, with synthetic fluids, block heaters and cold-weather fuel treatments.
The first cold snap arrived on December 9. At five in the morning, the temperature was six degrees Fahrenheit. Rick walked to the machine shed, climbed into an 8S 265 and turned the key.
It fired on the first crank. There was no hesitation or sluggish starter, just a clean ignition and smooth idle.
He ran it for three hours, feeding 240 head of cattle, moving large bales and operating the loader. The hydraulic response didn’t fade in the cold. The tractor didn’t flinch.
Rick smiled for the first time in months.
Tom Huxley wasn’t finished.
In early January, Rick received a call from First National of McCook, the same bank that had financed his land purchase in 2004 and equipment upgrades in 2011 and 2017. The loan officer, Gary, asked him to come in.
Rick walked into Gary’s office on a Thursday morning. Gary was polite and professional, but tension had entered his voice.
“Rick, I wanted to talk to you about your equipment financing. You’ve got $340,000 outstanding on implements and machinery.”
“Correct.”
“And you recently liquidated your John Deere fleet and replaced it with Massey Ferguson.”
Rick’s jaw tightened.
“I did.”
“We’ve had some concerns raised about resale value. Deere equipment holds value better in this region. If we ever had to repossess—”
“You’re not going to repossess anything. I’ve never missed a payment.”
“I know. But we have to consider asset depreciation. Massey Ferguson isn’t as strong in the secondary market here. We’d like you to increase your collateral coverage by fifteen percent.”
Rick stared at him.
“You want me to put up more collateral because I switched brands?”
Gary shifted in his seat.
“It’s just a risk assessment.”
“Did Tom Huxley call you?”
Gary didn’t answer.
Rick stood.
“I’ll refinance somewhere else.”
Two days later, he secured financing through Frontier Bank in Kearney. The rate was better, there was no additional collateral requirement and no brand-loyalty clause. When Gary called to apologize, Rick didn’t pick up.
February brought calving season in full swing: fourteen-hour days and subzero nights, with equipment running nonstop. Rick’s MF 7S 165 logged 340 hours in thirty days, feeding, hauling bedding and pulling calves in pasture corrals where grip and power mattered more than speed.
There wasn’t a single breakdown or service call.
When a hydraulic line blew on the loader, Rick called Johnston Ag. They had the replacement hose in stock. Rick drove up, picked it up and installed it himself in forty minutes. Had he still been running Deere, he thought, Huxley and Sons might have put him on a two-week backorder.
He was learning something that went beyond horsepower and fuel efficiency. Freedom had a value, and it wasn’t measured in resale percentages.
In March, Rick needed seed, fertilizer and chemicals. His usual supplier was Huxley Agronomy, a sister company run by Tom’s brother, Jeff. Rick had bought from them for twelve years.
He called to place his order.
“Yeah, Rick, we’re a little tight on inventory this year,” Jeff said. “I’m not sure we can prioritize your acres.”
Rick kept his voice even.
“Jeff, I’ve been buying from you since 2011. You’ve never had inventory issues before.”
“Well, things are different now. Suppliers are favoring long-term loyal customers.”
The subtext was clear. Rick hung up and drove to Landmark Cooperative, about thirty miles from McCook. He placed his full seed and chemical order there. They had everything in stock, at a better price than Huxley Agronomy had offered the year before.
Rick loaded his truck and drove home. He was done playing defense.
In April, he ran three MF 8S 265 tractors through 2,100 acres of corn and soybeans in seventeen days. The CVT transmissions let him adjust speed without shifting. The hydraulics gave him precise control over planter depth in variable soil. Better fuel efficiency meant fewer stops, fewer refills and more acres covered each day.
His neighbor, Bill Kerson, had been a Deere operator all his life and ran two Deere tractors. Bill finished his own ground in nineteen days. Rick’s Massey Fergusons planted more in less time and used less fuel.
Bill didn’t say anything, but he stopped making jokes about the red tractors.
In May, Rick was fueling up at the McCook co-op when Tom Huxley pulled in. Tom stepped out, saw him and walked over. For a moment, neither spoke.
“You made your point,” Tom said.
Rick looked at him.
“What point is that?”
“That you don’t need us.”
“I never said that,” Rick replied. “You’re the one who decided I didn’t matter anymore.”
Tom’s face hardened.
“You walked away from thirty years of relationship. My family sold to your family. We financed you when you needed us.”
Rick cut him off.
“I had a combine down in the middle of harvest, and you told me to wait three weeks. I couldn’t wait. So I found someone who wouldn’t make me.”
“And now you’re running equipment no one around here services. What happens when those Massey Fergusons break down and Johnston can’t get you parts?”
Rick met his eyes.
“Then I’ll deal with it. But at least I’ll be dealing with a company that treats me like I’m worth their time.”
Tom shook his head.
“You’re going to regret this.”
“Maybe. But it’ll be my regret, not yours.”
Tom walked back to his truck. They didn’t speak again until September.
By June 2024, one year had passed since the S780’s transmission failure. Rick stood in his shop, looking at the Massey Ferguson equipment that had carried his operation through a full cycle.
The two Ideal 9 combines had logged 680 combined hours with zero breakdowns. The three 8S tractors had 240 hours between them; one hydraulic hose and one fuel-filter housing had needed attention. Two 7S tractors had logged 890 hours without a problem.
Total maintenance cost for the year came to $11,400. The previous year, with Deere, it had been $24,300. Fuel savings amounted to $16,800. Downtime had nearly disappeared.
Rick opened his accounting software on his phone. His net income for 2024 was $447,000, the best year he had ever had.
Market prices had been average. Yields had been normal. The difference, he believed, was that his equipment worked. He hadn’t spent three weeks waiting for parts. When he called his dealer, someone answered.
The following July brought wheat harvest again. Rick ran both Ideal 9 combines through his fields and finished all 2,400 acres in nine days. Bill Kerson, running a Deere S790, took eleven.
The talk at the co-op changed. People asked how the Massey Fergusons were holding up, whether Johnston Ag was treating Rick well and whether the parts really arrived quickly. The doubt was fading—not because Rick defended himself, but because the numbers were hard to argue with.
In August, Dale Richter sent Rick a text. A farmer two counties over was considering a fleet change, and Dale had given him Rick’s number.
Rick smiled and called the man that night. He spent an hour answering questions, sharing his experience and talking through the transition.
At the end, the farmer asked whether Rick regretted switching.
Rick thought about the dealers who had stopped returning his calls, the bank that questioned his decisions and the neighbors who had waited for him to fail. He thought about the plaque bearing his name, still hanging in a showroom he would never enter again.
“No,” he said. “Not once.”
In September 2024, Rick was combining corn when a truck pulled into his driveway. He recognized it immediately. Tom Huxley.
Rick shut down the combine and climbed out. Tom walked over with his hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable.
“I’m not here to fight,” Tom said.
“All right.”
“I’m here because I wanted to say something I should have said a year ago.”
Tom took a breath.
“You were right. We didn’t treat you the way we should have, and we lost you because of it.”
Rick didn’t respond. Tom continued.
“I’m not asking you to come back. I know that’s not happening. But I wanted you to know we’ve changed some things: response times, parts inventory, how we handle guys when they’re in a bind. Watching you leave made us realize we’d gotten comfortable.”
Rick studied him.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re not the first guy who thought about switching. You’re just the first one who actually did it. I don’t want to lose anyone else the way we lost you.”
Tom extended his hand. Rick shook it—not because the past was forgotten, but because the message had finally been received.
By October, Rick’s operation ran on red Massey Ferguson equipment. He wasn’t fighting anyone anymore, and he wasn’t trying to prove anything. He was farming with machines that worked and a dealer that answered when he called.
At the McCook co-op, other farmers began asking practical questions. What was the difference between the 8S and 7S? How had parts availability really been? Would Johnston Ag work with them?
Rick answered honestly each time. He saw the same realization take hold: loyalty only worked when it ran both ways.
Rick Hollander hadn’t switched to Massey Ferguson to make a statement. He switched because he couldn’t afford not to. The name on the side of a tractor mattered less than the people who answered the phone when it broke, and inherited legacy mattered less than the operation a farmer could sustain.
Sometimes the most expensive decision is staying loyal to something that has stopped being loyal to you.
