Logistics are pivotal to the Joyce family

A WA Challenger

Logistics are pivotal to the Joyce family's sizeable winter plant programme if their six Challenger tracked tractors and matching air seeders are to perform flawlessly.
Based at Varley, at the eastern edge of Western Australia's Lakes District, the focus this year has been on achieving their 40,000ha (100,000 acre) target with the minimum amount of down-time.

McIntosh and Son sales consultant Kevin Newman said the Joyce family had been attracted to the Challenger brand principally because of its strength in construction, also its reliability.

"As well, they like the fact of they get all that power to the ground," he said.
Mr Newman said it was important for large broadacre farming operations to know they have the equipment "to keep going" whenever a window of opportunity opens in the cropping cycle.

"The Challenger's basic components are very strong and they probably are 'over-specced' for what they do - but that just makes them more reliable," he said.

Challenger's name increasingly is associated with high-performance broadacre operations with one of its unmodified Challenger MT 865 tractors claiming a world record in 2003 when pulling a 18.35m (60ft) wide Horsch seeder at an Agro-Soyuz farm in Dniepropetrovsk, Ukraine, when it achieved a 'most spring barley planted' in 24 hours accolade - some 571.9ha (1413.2 acres) which translates into a work rate of about 24.3ha (60 acres) an hour.