Hi-tech was on grand display at AgQuip this year from seed planting to seed sorting and everything in between.
Weed identifying camera sprayers are certainly hot at the moment, as fallow country meant to be kept clean is ripe for this kind of clever tech. Some bank managers are keen to back investments like this that reduce the cost of spray while limiting environmental footprint.
So it was no surprise the crew from McIntosh Distribution were kept busy demonstrating their WeedSeeker 2 technology, which incorporates infra-red and near infra-red scanning ability to lock in on green colour and moisture.
New air seeders designed for Australian conditions, like the eight metre span Bourgault, with clever sensor technology to ensure variable sowing rates on the run, were exciting clients keen to maximise planting during shorter and patchier windows of opportunity.
At the other end of the production line clever seed sorters, running on photographic memory and using a puff of air to push out the waste, are starting to make more and more sense for even smaller cropping operations, with sorted seed stored on-farm able to attract a better price. Chinese built seed sorters start from under $20,000.
Even the Department of Primary Industries weighed in on the technology shout-out with its version of an ultra modern bull selection program which allows bull buyers to dial in and out of genetic traits, while observing how those EBVs might impact on progeny.
Sure, it might have been dry and dusty at Gunnedah this year but it was green and fertile in the minds of those visiting Ag Quip who hailed from promising cropping districts in Western and South Australia.
With so much on show it made sense that new Dutch import Agrifac and its sales team were able to attract consumers inherently interested in technology designed from the ground up.
Rather than bolt on additions, the engineers have reconfigured their latest sprayer to suit the time poor producer, with crucial clean out more like half an hour, not half the day.
A big draw card is the rig's weight distribution, being light, flexible for terrain and well balanced. Wheel widths can change from 2m to 4.5m on the run when changing from a tramline setting in a cotton paddock to another growing dryland cereal.
Sales of the imported model have increased 66 per cent year on year with several premium rigs selling for north of $1m in recent weeks.
"People are chasing efficiency," said Agrifac's James Fox, servicing southern NSW.
"They want droplet and nozzle control and they are willing to pay for this high technology."
