County sticks with Deere machinery

Supervisors of a Nebraska county approved the purchase of a John Deere tractor earlier this week.
Supervisors of a Nebraska county approved the purchase of a John Deere tractor earlier this week.
Dodge County, Nebraska supervisor decided Wednesday evening to replace a 2005 John Deere tractor with a a newer 2010 model from John Deere, according to a published report.

The Eastern Nebraska county will purchase a 2010 John Deere 770GP from Murphy Tractor and Equipment of Omaha for $195,816. That equipment will take over for a 2005 John Deere, which the county might be able to sell soon.

"We have at least one township in our county that's interested in it possibly," supervisor Lon Strand said to the Fremont Tribune. "We're confident that we can maybe do ourselves a little better by selling it outright."

As of January 1, emissions standards apply to heavy equipment and firms have engineered new machinery to comply with those standards. The compliant machinery is known as Tier 4 while Tier 3 equipment remains available.

Untested new technology that's part of the newly manufactured Tier 4 equipment represents one issue.

"I just want to stay with the Tier 3 and that will get us out of this Tier 4 loop for probably three or four years," Strand said.