Innovation and tenacity
Farmers flock to Feilding showcase featuring everything from fuel tankers to repurposed vineyard posts
A Manawatū fuel tank manufacturer believes it has an innovation that could give farmers back five hours a week and save them money.
A tank designed by Ensol that supplies both diesel and exhaust fluid is one of several bold ideas standing out among the bright sea of banners at Central Districts Field Days in Feilding.
The agriculture event, featuring 500 exhibitors spread over 33 hectares of Manfeild racetrack, got under way yesterday in mild conditions, with thousands of people filtering through the tent city.
It was in the same place 12 months ago where the seed was planted for Ensol’s new mobile tankers, which hold AdBlue – an exhaust fluid that reduces the emissions in diesel-powered farm vehicles.
“At this show last year, we got an awful lot of enquiries for AdBlue,” said general manager Shane Parlato – so the company responded.
AdBlue would normally be bought in 20-litre drums that needed to be decantered, or in 1000L pods at larger farms where vehicles would need to be returned to for refuelling. Both were “painful” inconveniences for farmers, Parlato said.
Ensol, which has been operating in Manawatū for 28 years and has made more than 6000 fuel tanks, has produced a 1000L trailer that can towed anywhere to pump AdBlue efficiently, and a combination trailer that stores 500 to 700L of diesel, and a 250L hold of AdBlue.
“This will save a farmer five hours a week,” Parlato said of the mobile tanker.
He added that the initial feedback had been strong. “Farmers in Hawke’s Bay are dying to see it. Today is the first day anyone has got to see it.”
Tasman man Greg Coppell, meanwhile, was encouraging farmers to consider his sustainable alternative to buying new fence posts.
His enterprise, Repost, repurposes damaged vineyard posts for farm use – at half to two-thirds the price of new 1.6m and 1.8m posts.
Coppell said 800,000 to a million vineyard posts were snapped by harvesters every year in Marlborough.
His operation, which had grown to a team of 16 in the past year, cut off the broken ends, used a hydraulic press to remove any nails, then bundled up the resized posts and sent them to farmers.
Manawatū and Wairarapa had become the biggest regions Repost served, and it had also had started processing waste from Hawke’s Bay orchards and the construction industry.
Coppell said he was no salesman but thankfully it didn’t seem he needed to be.
“It’s going nuts, really ... Farmers just get it, and I wouldn’t be trying to sell it to any other group of people, really. They’re just easy people to explain it to, and understand it.”
While Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was confidently ripping into a ride-on lawnmower race, making Rangitīkei MP Suze Redmayne and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay eat his clippings, children at the event were enamoured by a more formidable vehicle.
The Sherp, an amphibious “full off-road beast” weighing 2.1 tonnes. with tyres 1.8m tall, made quite a statement at the Impact Off Road display.
The Hamilton-based business, which largely trades in quad trucks, recently became the New Zealand and Australia supplier for the Ukrainian-built behemoth, which can scale a 1m-high obstacle, and is of primary interest to search and rescue, and adventure operators.
Sales manager Ian Anderson said the Sherp also had status appeal for the wealthy. “Overseas, they do a lot of tourism with it.”
For example, it could be launched off a barge in Fiordland, navigate around the fiords, then trek up on to land for a tour, before returning to the water and back to the barge.
Field Days continues today and tomorrow, featuring freestyle motocross shows, the national finals of the excavator operator competition, and the regional final of Young Farmer of the Year.