Rory Vermeesch, Mount Madden WA
The problem
Rory runs two cropping enterprises in Western Australia with his brothers – one located at Mount Madden with 8,200 hectares, and the other 150km away in Cascades with 12,000 hectares. The family team grow barley, lentils, wheat and canola, and were in need of an additional boom sprayer when they purchased the second property at Mount Madden.
Having already experienced the efficiency and quality of Agrifac’s mighty Endurance I, they opted to invest in the next-level model with a heightened design, the Endurance II.
“We had a lot less hectares to farm prior to bringing in the Agrifac,” explains Rory. “The Agrifac has now come on with the business growing in size. We had an identical pair of sonic tow-behind sprayers, both 10,000L tank capacity and 160ft boom-width, running at Cascades, and when we purchased Mount Madden we were in need of another sprayer to operate that country.”
Consideration
When looking at a new boom sprayer, Rory considered a number of other brands. He says Agrifac came out on top because of the ability to spray at speed with good ground clearance and boom width.
“We have a rather large canola program and our ground clearance was key as was streamline of the actual machine itself,” he says. “The ability to impact the least amount of crop as possible while spraying was a huge factor in buying the Agrifac. We felt it was more streamlined than a lot of other machines on the market, and better ground clearance, as well as being at the 160ft boom-width and 3m centres for our controlled traffic tramlining, and also the tank capacity of 8,000L – we didn’t want to go any smaller than that.”
The economy foundation of Agrifac was an important one to Rory – getting the most bang for his buck, which is shown in the cost per hectare.
Rory says he and his brothers experienced minimal down time with the Endurance I, which is key when spraying due to time being vital.
For Rory, more operating hours at full efficiency enabled his team to cover the ground they needed in solid time.
“Even being able to spray in varying conditions of the wind and weather – the Agrifac was still able to do a very good job in all weather conditions. The Endurance I got our foot in the door with Agrifac. We felt like we had a good run with that one, so we seriously contemplated trading that in for a new version.”
Agrifac is well known for being ‘Brilliant Simple’ – delivering the innovative tools that are extremely easy to use and maintain in order to produce sufficient, nutritious and safe food.
The Solution
Purchasing the Endurance II made economic sense for Rory and his brothers’ business because of the productivity of the machine.
“The productivity, the versatility and the precision of spraying – we thought no other machine could do that. Originally, we didn’t want to have two machines, but we felt this Endurance II was going to be more productive again than the Endurance I – and it’s certainly showing that!”
Rory says the Agrifac machinery is proving to be more productive and economic than their tow-behind sprayers thanks to the technology, the ability to spray in all different weather conditions and still do an accurate job.
Rory no longer has to worry about the coverage of the crop due to weather conditions. With an Agrifac, he is in fingertip control – right in the comfort of his cab.
The StrictSprayPlus controls the application rate at individual nozzle level to achieve an accurate spray for the current application and conditions, even through the turns – a feature that gets a lot of Agrifac customers talking.
Another standout reason Rory and his brothers went for the Endurance II was the back-up service in their region. With an Agrifac Service Partner covering the Esperance region of WA, there are always mechanics available as well as willing to answer the phones.
“They’re always keen to come out and see what needs to be done on the machine. It’s never been a hassle with either machine – we’re located 220km from the mechanic, but it’s never been an issue. Our whole experience with Agrifac has been good.”
Agrifac is keen to listen to the ideas of its customers and continually strives to deliver innovative solutions that fix a greater problem – not just place a bandage over the top.
“The whole Agrifac team listens to our problems or suggestions and puts that to the Agrifac board to try and come up with a solution – it’s quite nice to know that our voice is getting heard. It’s encouraging.”
The Agrifac team is not only passionate about our products, but also the customer service we deliver to all our clients.
Learn More about Condor Endurance
Condor Endurance II
Condor Endurance II
- Built for maximal capacity and speed
- J-booms available up to 55 metres
- 8000 litre tank
- Red dot Award winning 2019
Cereals
When it comes to Arable Farming, Cereal crops such as grains could be argued as being the most commonly grown across the globe. Cereal crops are primarily used as the main ingredient for a whole host of food items, as well as in some drinks too, because they provide essential nutrients needed for the human diet.
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Maize
Similar to sunflowers, maize is a crop which utilizes and thrives on sunlight and is best grown in sunny regions to ensure highest yield per hectare. Soils should be warm enough to ensure a good emergence shortly after being drilled, therefore late Spring is the ideal time for the grower to commence planting.
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Sunflowers
Sunflowers’ drought-tolerance make it an ideal crop to grow in warmer countries. With the selective breeding of the crop over the years however, it has become adaptable to grow in most parts of the world, within the dry sunny regions. The sunflower plant has a deep, finely branched tap-root system that can utilise water from soil layers as deep as 2m. This is why the crop performs well during a dry season.
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Tulips
Consumers care about the quality of their fresh cut tulips. The delicate petals at the tip of the crop and their stems can be damaged so quickly that this is not always the end result for the grower.
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Sugar beets
The root crop sugar beet is the main sugar source grown by farmers in Europe. Like potatoes, this crop grows underground, which makes it even more important to ensure that the soil conditions are adequate to be able to produce a high yielding harvest.
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Flax
The Agrifac Condor range is designed to effectively operate across all crop types; nourishing the soil in its path as well as treating and eliminating weeds to generate higher yields.
Learn MoreMore user experiences
Andy Morton
Growing a range of crops such as wheat, barley, oil seed rape, vining peas, beans and potatoes, the arable operations spans 4000 hectares over 14 sites across East Yorkshire.
Frank de Schutter, Westerhalm
"Now the first year, I already notice that we have 3% extra yield because of the Condor WideTrack. And with Agrifac Band spraying, we save about 60% in resources. "
Robert Adkonis
The reason for buying this sprayer was that it has an ability to raise the suspension up to 2 meters and to also give the ability to change the track width in the range of 205 to 280 cm while driving.