Forfar potato machinery manufacturer Scanstone has secured a new export market following a sales mission to New Zealand.
Father and son Gordon and William Skea could have taken the easy option of simply travelling to the country and explaining how their range of machinery works.
Instead, they took the considerable gamble of shipping out three machines a stone separator, a bed former and a bed tiller.
“It paid off, though, “ said Gordon.
“We had a great reception from the farming community and they really seemed to appreciate the effort we had made.
“After demonstrating the machines on the Canterbury Plains we power washed with a fire hose taken off a pivot irrigator, applied a bit of polish and took them to Ashburton Show, where they attracted a lot of interest.
“By the time we left to come home, all the machines had been sold. Now we are looking forward to developing the market.”
The Skeas concentrated on the Canterbury Plains area of the South Island and despite its reputation for consistently good soils, they found considerable variation in stone and clod content.
Pivot irrigation has made it possible to grow big crops of grass for the dairy industry and increasing numbers of farmers are now following grass with potatoes in the rotation.
“This meant the separator was often having to cope with large quantities of grassy fibre as well as stones,” said William.
The New Zealand trip was the second one made by Scanstone to the Southern Hemisphere in 2013.
The company, based at Burnside, demonstrated machines in South Africa earlier in the year.