NZ Soil Management Field Days

By: Lyndsay Whittle

Date: 25.03.2017

Farm Trader checks out the NZ Soil Management Field Days event

As an agronomist, Shane Smith saw a huge potential in organising an event where agriculturists and manufacturers of soil treatment products and other equipment could join forces at a single event. Thus, the NZ Soil Management Field Days was born.

With 27 years’ experience in agronomy (15 of those in New Zealand), Shane was keen to share his knowledge in the field of soil cultivation, conservation, and crop productivity. So along with Simon Wilcox from AS Wilcox and Sons Ltd, he set about organising the first event in 2015.

Shane says that despite having a reasonably large customer base attached to his company, Progrow, he could only see perhaps four or five clients in the course of a normal working day to talk about better ways of increasing yield and general productivity by employing the use of the most up-to-date technology.

However, he believed that by organising a two-day event, he would be able to get the message out to maybe as many as a hundred growers at one single field day.

He and his organising committee knew that in order to organise an event that would attract the input of a large number of exhibitors, they would need some serious financial backing to get the event up and running, so one of their first calls was made to Potatoes New Zealand Inc.

Shane says that Potatoes New Zealand Inc CEO Chris Claridge saw the potential of the event and was supportive of the idea right from the get-go, and so provided his team with free-of-charge administration, along with organising much of the advertising for the event.

Shane adds that if it wasn’t for Potatoes New Zealand’s input, NZ Soil Management Field Days may have never come into being.

It goes without saying that obtaining a venue for an event requiring practical use of agricultural equipment was the most important part of the equation.

Shane says a great deal of thanks goes to Sundale Farms who gladly shared their Pukekawa property with hundreds of people they’ve never met before.

While the 2015 event was held in perfect weather conditions, allowing machinery and other equipment to be put through its paces in the field, unfortunately, the same wasn’t true for this year’s event, where the first day really couldn’t have been much worse, considering the time of the year in which it was held.

Fortunately, day two saw less downpour, but it was still too wet underfoot for any machine demonstrations. Inclement weather and all that accompanying mud aside, the exhibitors we spoke to said it was a worthwhile exercise for the them and they’d definitely be back with a display at the next event and hopefully be able to demonstrate their equipment in action.

The third member of this year’s organising committee, Arjune Dahya, says he enjoyed playing his part in organising the event and that he is already looking forward to making plans for the next Field Days.

The youngest exhibitor on site, Luke Posthuma, whose company GrowMaps is a provider of an electrical conductivity (EC) soil mapping service, said that from his point of view, the bad weather didn’t stand in the way of their getting "a number of good leads".

Considering many companies transported a significant amount of equipment a long distance and with all the costs that entails, it reinforces the commitment manufactures and suppliers have to getting their products out in the marketplace.

People such as Garry Hoyle from Farmchief drove a truckload of machinery all the way from Farmchief’s Invercargill branch.

Another exhibitor, NZ Tractors, came from Ashburton with a Garford intercrop cultivator/sprayer, which is new to the market, along with a multitude of other machinery.

Shane reckons he has probably reached the end of his tenure at the helm of the NZ Soil Management Field Days organising committee. Although, he does say that he’ll still be involved in putting the next one together in 2019.

Citing that organising an event of this size does shift his focus from his own business during the months following up to each event, he says he’ll be happy to pass on the baton to either of his two capable co-organisers – Simon Wilcox or Arjune Dahya.

For more details on the NZ Soil Management Field Days, check out NZ Soil Field Days on Facebook.

And for further information on Potatoes New Zealand Inc, drop an e-mail to info@potatoesnz.co.nz.

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