New offset tractor market

My posts rarely exist long enough to garner any realistic responses...but I thought perhaps I"d try once more.

Do any of you think a major tractor maker will ever reintroduce an offset cultivating model again?

I feel it was economics, rather than liability that killed the new offset market close to 25 years ago. However, with the big push by the Greenies and health food nuts against chemical herbicides and fertilizers, it would seem to me that small crop cultivation would be on the rebound.

Attrition is taking its toll on the old Farmall"s and similar tractors traditionally used for these purposes and I am satisfied that many people would be willing to invest in new machines.....IF they could buy them.

Some claim that liability killed the offset and tricycle configurations, but I contend it was simply economics.....a corporate financial decision to get out of a stale market. However, that happened 25 years ago......when there was a glut of still serviceable "old" tractors still in the field. Another quarter century of use has elapsed and I think the market is ready to absorb new production. I know I would buy one, if only I could.

I really doubt that an offset tractor as we think of it will be produced by a major mfg. I expect it is in part because of the very large machinery used with rear 3 pt. equipment on the large vegetable farms.

With less cultivating taking place today, replaced by chemicals, seems unlikely to me.

I don't know if you might be in the market for a small offset tractor, but there is a company that is retrofitting Kubota tractors to make them offset with them being aimed at the market gardener market.

For other small tractors geared toward market gardening there is the Tuff-bilt tractor http://www.tuff-bilt.com/about.html and the Saukville http://saukvilletractor.homestead.com/ with both stylized along the lines of the Allis G with mid mount tools. The light weight machines also help to prevent soil compaction.

A guess this is just a long winded way to say no, I don't think an offset will be readily produced again.
PDF for Kubota L3000 offset retrofit.

If an offset tractor demand exists it is in developing countries. I'd bet China makes one somewhere in their collection of tractors.

I don't think you'll see a resurgence here.

Nowadays there is the option of cheap ag cameras and screens you could mount to see the rows in any kind of tractor.

Tuff-Bilt stills builds a nice cultivating tractor modeled after the Allis Chalmers G with the engine in the rear.The Tuff-Bilt tractor uses a 3pt set up under the tractor and can be easily seen while cultivating even better than an offset with a front engine.Kubota built an offset for awhile also don't know if they still do or not

I had similar thoughts a couple years ago when I started working on my small farm. I have noticed that there isn't much in the way of new tractors with an adjustable front axle, nearly everything is made with 4 wheel drive.

In the late 1980's John Deere actually produced an offset version of it's 850 tractor, the 900HC. My family is the original owner of one. It's a nice tractor, for cultivating, but fairly unhandy at everything else.

I believe there just isn't a market for a new tractor with those capabilities. Small farms are either using older tractors for cultivating, or rototillers, or plastic mulch. The plastic mulch prevents the weeds from growing, reduces irrigation water usage, cuts down on soil erosion and compaction. I believe the plastic mulch is the direction that small crops are headed toward.