One of the keys to long-term success in any industry is diversification. Whether that’s diversifying the products you offer, the approach you take, or the technology you use; most likely, it’s some combination of all three.

For many farms, that means adding different crops to the rotation, custom harvesting for clients, or even taking on additional work outside the farming world. For the Petersons, that outside work often isn’t actually too far from home.

Brothers Greg, Nathan, and Kendal Peterson started the Peterson Farm Bros YouTube channel in 2012 and posted a parody video, "I’m Farming, and I Grow It," a cover of LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It" with the lyrics changed to reflect their farming business. As eldest brother Greg tells it, they knew the video would get some views, maybe 50,000 or, at best, 100,000, but they certainly didn’t expect it to gain 5 million hits in the first week, making it a true viral sensation. Since then, the brothers have maintained the YouTube page with vlog-style videos about life on the farm, and, of course, one or two more parody-song videos a year.

The success of that YouTube channel has allowed them to diversify even further (literally), doing paid speaking engagements all over the country.

“We do a lot of entertainment for different conferences or meetings. We kind of have an entertainment program, which is based on our music videos and social media presence. Then we also give keynotes and stuff and do some appearances at farm shows. And so that's certainly a challenge for our farming operation, specifically, is that we leave a lot, one or two of us, and then the other two kind of have to pick up the slack. But it's a great opportunity to spread the word about agriculture as well as bring some external income into our farming operation,” explains Greg.

“We definitely wouldn't have been able to go from supporting one family to four in a matter of five or six years like we did without diversifying our farm. You know, some people diversify their farms in a variety of ways; you can get a job in town, whatever it is. For us, we're able to use social media to bring in additional income and speaking engagements, too. So it's kind of a unique deal, but we're certainly thankful for it because it enabled us as brothers to be able to expand the farm and all farm full-time.”

Greg and his brothers are fifth-generation farmers on both their paternal and maternal sides. On the paternal side, their great-great-grandparents immigrated from Sweden in 1882 and homesteaded in central Kansas, on the very farm where some of the Peterson family live now. And Greg lives on the former homestead of his maternal great-great-grandparents. Now, with some of Greg, Nathan, and Kendal’s kids involved, they can actually say they are running a sixth-generation family farm.

Not only has the family continued to grow, but the farm itself has nearly quadrupled in acreage from when Greg and his brothers were small, which is what allows them to now support four families (which includes the Peterson parents, all the siblings along with their wives and children) as previously mentioned. They now grow wheat, corn, soybeans, sorghum, and a variety of forages to feed their own cattle, which they run about 1,000 at a time.

And with that growth comes the third piece of the diversifying puzzle – upgraded technology. The Petersons have been MacDon customers for years; they currently run two FD75s on their John Deere combines, purchasing the second one not long after the first because they “like it so much,” says Greg.

Middle brother Nathan says they’ve been very pleased with the performance of the FlexDraper® headers, especially because they require minimal maintenance and feed well into the combines.

“We used to have auger heads, and we really like the drapers for all crops. It just feeds a lot nicer,” says Nathan.

“And as we've gotten bigger, you need to start soybean harvest earlier and be more efficient with it,” adds Greg. “So, I think being able to chew through some greener stemmed beans and then just having less downtime, that's been pretty important to our operation. So, yeah, we liked our first one so much we bought a second one essentially.”

And while they only have positive things to say about their FD75s, when the opportunity comes along to test the latest and most innovative MacDon header on the market, an FD2 PLUS FlexDraper® header, it’s hard to say no.

“I'd seen them around, and I knew they looked like a really nice header, kind of combining the flex frame that MacDon has had for a long time, and then adding the flexible cutterbar, and the triple reel is nice too. So we thought it'd be awfully nice to try it out, see how it compares,” explains Nathan, saying he first saw the FD2 PLUS at a farm show, and was acquainted with the FD140 FlexDraper through his cousin, who was using it on his own farm.

Enter the family’s friend Doug, a local MacDon rep, who was able to arrange a demoing opportunity for the Petersons of both the FD2 PLUS and a C-series Corn Head. Doug and another MacDon specialist brought the headers to the Peterson farm and quickly got everything up and running.

“It didn't take much to set it up with the combine. And then this one actually just reached its 50-hour break-in period, so they did all the break-in, like oil changes and stuff, and had it all ready for us. You know, they made sure it was running right, and away we went,” says Nathan.

Though they’ve only been running the FD2 PLUS for a short time, Nathan is already impressed with what he’s seen and experienced.

“It's been really nice. We were going over more terraces yesterday than today, but we basically could go however we wanted, and it was doing a really nice job getting down into the trough and just working its way over them. I mean, it's been impressive. They got it set up for us, and so it plugs in all the combine’s diagnostics, so it keeps itself on the ground at the right down pressure, and it's been floating really nice for us,” says Nathan.

“We've liked the draper, but we feel like we do see benefits of the flexible cutterbar in undulating ground, and so it's good to see that. And the John Deere HydraFlex seemed like you had to keep a lot of sensors kind of in shape, and I’m not even sure what all this one has, but so far it’s been doing a really good job.” 

“And it's a 40-foot header so, you know, the biggest we've ever ran is 35 feet so, it's fun to just be able to take 40 feet at a time. And then it's definitely improved with going over terraces or any dips in the field. It does a really good job,” says Greg.

“You don't have to do much as an operator as long as it's set right. And so, it's been pretty fun just to get to use it. And it's definitely an improvement over the older headers.”

One of the most unique features of the FD2 Plus is the reel-to-cutterbar relationship; this header has an additional two inches of flex at the cutterbar which allows it to hug the ground tighter than the original FlexDraper® headers. This extra flex is accomplished through a leaf-spring system; though simple, the springs are incredibly durable and passed MacDon’s rigorous testing protocol with flying colours.

“It definitely can run really close to the cutterbar. I've noticed a difference with the triple reel staying since it kind of matches up to where the header flexes. And we've always liked that about the MacDons, is they get nice and close and keep that cutterbar clean because we end up cutting a lot of short beans, whether they're double crop or whether they're just up on a hill. We just have dry summers sometimes, and cut short beans. Sometimes they still make 40 bushels an acre or whatever, but they're short, and so to be able to keep them sweeping into the header is a big deal,” says Nathan.

“And we cut milo with these too, and it's the same kind of thing, like we only want to take the heads, and so the closer we can keep that reel to the cutterbar, the less of the plant material we have to take and keep out of the combine, so that's nice.”

“I think it's like an ideal header to use in soybeans,” adds Greg. “When you're trying to go over a lot of terraces or when you're needing to cover a lot of acres, it's definitely been good for us to use, and we don't have any complaints about it. And, you know, in the future, when we're needing to upgrade to a 40-foot head, we definitely would want to buy that one.”

Nathan has a similarly positive response to the FD2 PLUS; he thinks anyone who is interested should give it a try and request a demo.

“I'd tell them they would like it if they tried it,” says Nathan. “I know it's going to another place after us, a friend that we know, and I'm sure they'll like it. It's been a pretty good experience, so we really appreciate being able to demo it.”

Peterson Farm Bros:
Website: petersonfarmbrothers.com
Facebook: facebook.com/petersonfarmbros
Instagram: instagram.com/petefarmbros
TikTok: tiktok.com/@petersonfarmbros
Snapchat: snapchat.com/@petefarmbros
X: twitter.com/petefarmbros

Visit our product pages to learn more:
FD2 PLUS Series FlexDraper® Header
FD2 Series FlexDraper® Header

Additional Resources:
MacDon Dealers