TWO years of sustained growth has caused Croplands WA manager John Griffiths to expand the company’s product service and support structure.
“We’ve enjoyed a good run of sales with our RoGators and WEEDit spot sprayers and it’s not stopping,” John told Torque last week.
“We’ve also got some big plans on the drawing board but if I told you now I would have to kill you.”
What Torque did glean was a major focus on maintaining technical support
“There is an ever-evolving growth footprint in technology and we have moved to ensure our customers can easily embrace new technology through our technical support network,’’ John said.
“So we’re announcing the appointment of Tony Wyatt as our field service technician for RoGators and Ryan Cale as a specialist technician for WEEDit service and support.”
Tony, who immigrated from England, is a fully qualified service technician in electrics, mechanics and hydraulics and has completed precision ag training with Croplands.
The latter involved Croplands’ so-called Logic 3, which the company says is arguable the world’s most advanced liquid system technology.
It includes a FlowLogic system which constantly circulates product through the boom, plumbing and filters, which means when you turn on the product pump, product begins to flow through the entire boom plumbing, quickly priming the boom.
E-Stop valves on each nozzle body, enables on/off control at the nozzle body.
Ryan hails from a family farm at Bolgart and also has completed Croplands training, particularly specific to WEEDit sprayers.
According to John, since Croplands took over the distribution of WEEDit from Total Precision Systems two years ago, more farmers have adopted the technology for weed control.
“This will be our second season with WEEDit and we’re ready with demonstration programs for 2019,” he said.
Croplands unveiled a WEEDit 7000 in 2016 and according to John it has quickly gained market acceptance.
“We’ve entered into a partnership with Sonic Boomsprays which is manufacturing a WEEDit unit designed exclusively for our WA market,” John said.
“It’s a dual tank, dual sprayline, high-capacity optical spot sprayer fitted with a 7000 litre main tank with 800L flushing tank and 1500L ‘hot’ tank,” he said.
The ‘hot’ tank is aptly named as it holds high concentration chemicals specifically for spot spraying – the secret weapon for combating hard-to-kill weeds and thus delaying the onset of herbicide resistance.
John also announced the appointment of JL AgTech, Dalwallinu as a new service provider for the RoGator range.
“The company is headed up by John Lobwein who is well known in the area and he has three service vehicles and six staff to provide service support and back-up,” John said.
“This continues our expansion throughout the Wheatbelt to provide local service back-up and support for inevitable changing technologies.”
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And to further confirm John’s belief that this is still the age of humans, staff from Croplands and Nufarm will be joining forces to conduct a series of spray information days throughout WA in February, with the focus on recent changes with the use of 2,4-D and what this will mean for WA growers.
The days also will provide an opportunity to take a spin in the new RoGator 1300C model and check out the WEEDit spot spray demonstration trailer.
Croplands and Nufarm will be holding these events in Geraldton, Dalwallinu, Merredin, Katanning, Lake King and Esperance.
Highly regarded spray expert Bill Campbell will be one of several keynote speakers, covering a range of topics including boomsprayer set-up and nozzle selections as part of the discussions.
More information on these Croplands and Nufarm 2,4-D days will be available soon.