Just inside the the 40-foot-wide fold-up door on Shawn Gefferts machine shed if you can call a building large enough to hold a basketball court a shed sits a tiny John Deere riding toy, the apple of son Wades eye.
Nearby, poised for dispatch as soon as ground dries, is a tractor sporting wide, hard-rubber tracks rather than wheels and tires. The machine, a John Deere 9520RX, is large enough easily to run over and crush a small pickup truck. More importantly, it is capable of cruising through a field of corn stubble drawing a 40-foot disk at 10 miles an hour.
Wade, who turned 18 months this week, is years from making the decision, but if he follows the Geffert pedigree and becomes a farmer, he may never step foot in a tractor, but instead oversee field work and harvesting by way of a computer terminal.
