OVER the past decade, the agriculture customer base have become more enamoured of telehandlers, according to Source Machinery director Barry Murphy.
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"Farms have been getting bigger and, to a degree, more professional," Mr Murphy said.
"So you have to be at the top of your game because you're competing with every other farmer as well, and the telehandler is a multifunctional tool.
"It's probably now one of the most used machines on a farm - farmers will spend a million bucks on a header but it gets used six to eight weeks a year, whereas a farm with a telehandler is getting turned on at a minimum every week, but probably every day."
As a Merlo telehandler dealer, Mr Murphy spoke about the innovations and qualities that make this particular brand of telehandler machines stand out.
"To our biased view, it's the most operator friendly," he said.
"It's got a hydrostatic transmission, meaning you put your foot on the accelerator it goes, take your foot off, it stops."
Mr Murphy also pointed to one of Merlo's top innovations, something many other brands followed.
"In the early to mid-90s, most telehandlers had a rear mounted engine, and the boom came across the right hand window," Mr Murphy said.
"So Merlo designed and patented the side-mounted engine, where the boom sits between the engine and the cab.
"That advantage of that is even when you're at travel height, you can see out the right hand window of your machine."
As telehandlers are well known for their use in construction, Mr Murphy said it was important to note there were some points of difference between what an agriculture client and a construction industry client would require.
"The three things that differentiate construction spec from ag spec are horsepower, hydraulic power and road speed," he said.
Mr Murphy said in construction, the machines were generally in the ballpark of 75 to 100 horsepower, whereas in ag, they tend to be up to 160 horsepower.
"Hydraulic is multifunctionality - on a construction spec machine, they're quite happy with one function after the other.
"As in, we boom up, then we boom out.
"Or we crowd the forks and then we pull down."
He said in agriculture, farmers wanted to perform all kinds of actions simultaneously.
"Literally, to move bales of hay, they want to come in, lift the bale up, crate it back and drive all at the same time," Mr Murphy said.
"They want that multifunctionality that requires more oil flow.
"And the third thing is road speed - there are a lot of farms, particularly in WA, which are big.
"A construction spec machine will generally do about 25km per hour and an ag spec machine is about 40km/hr - no one on a farm wants to be dawdling along at 20km/h".
Mr Murphy said farmers generally went for a telehandler with a four to five tonne lift capacity and a seven to 10 metre reach.
Moreover, the Merlo's cab has seen a significant upgrade compared to past models.
"The airconditioner has improved," Mr Murphy said.
"In years gone by, the aircon was questionable at the best of times, which resulted in people operating with their doors open, which led to dirt and dust in the cab."
Mr Murphy reported that feedback on the Merlo telehandlers, particularly on the Merlo Multifarmer, had been positive.
"People across the Wheatbelt and further afield even, have been snapping them up," he said.
"Because WA is geographically so big, we've become pretty good at remote diagnosis - as in, if a customer rings up and says 'my machine is doing this, it's not supposed to be', then we can find the solution."
