THE spray gear sales boom of recent years has triggered a new burst of overseas interest in the Australian market for farm spray machinery.
Two prominent British manufacturers are now making a serious play for the Australian market and another US manufacturer last week joined the big line up of imports now complementing the solid range of locally-made gear on offer to broadacre and horticulture croppers.
In fact, the first of the Indianapolis-built Apache range of lightweight self propelled gear arrived in Australia just four days before going on show to enthusiastic onlookers at this year's Commonwealth Bank AgQuip field days at Gunnedah.
Apache importer, John Reichstein, from Goondiwindi on the NSW-Queensland border, believed self propelled sprayers would become common to many cropping enterprises, not just large scale farms, because they could respond quickly and efficiently to today's increasingly varied weed and fungal problems.
"Cereal rust wasn't really too much of an issue 10 years ago, but it now seems to be with us for good - even in drought years," he said.
"And because you must get on top of a rust outbreak within a few days or risk having serious yield losses, more family farms realise they need appropriate gear to do the job, rather than waiting for a neighbour or contractor to be free."
UK company, Househam, scored encouraging support for its initial foothold in the Australian market last year when Victorian vegetable cropper, Darren Shreurs - a big Househam fan - was judged inaugural winner of the Syngenta SPRAY awards.
Part of his overseas study tour prize included a visit to the company's manufacturing and research plant in Lincholn in northern England a few months ago.
Househam is one of the UK's top two big selling self propelled spray gear brands with about 40 per cent of the British market and a strong seller in New Zealand.
Its custom-built spray rigs have sold to Australian horticulture and cotton producers for almost a decade via distribution deals with Silvan and more recently the big Victorian manufacturer, Goldacres.
But the UK company is now setting up its own offices in Australia to bolster its service to what it sees as a market with big growth potential.
In particular, Househam is eyeing higher rainfall crop and mixed farming areas where it anticipates increasing interest in its nimble, four-wheel-steer, four-wheel-drive rigs.
"We're not trying to compete with the heavier, large scale equipment already widely used in the big broadacre crop areas," said Househam director, David Sutherland.
"We see ourselves more in the irrigated crops and high rainfall zones like Tasmania, Victoria's Western District or the NSW slopes, where farmers want lighter gear and can't risk bogging and compaction problems."
Another UK name keen to establish a special local niche, Chafer, is literally riding on the back of the newly introduced Multidrive Tractor, built in Britain and on show at AgQuip after last year's southern NSW debut.
Multidrive six and four wheel drive and steer truck-like tractors, are built in Gloucestershire as low ground pressure agricultural load carriers and haulers, ideal for boomspray gear, water tanks, fertiliser spreaders or moving farm produce and equipment.
"We're looking for broadacre markets in the spray and fertiliser sectors," said Multidrive principal and now Western Australian resident, Chris Kelland, who also has distribution rights for Chafer equipment in Australia.
"I think there's good scope for British spray gear here. It's high quality product with a loyal following in the UK."
In fact, Mr Kelland said many of the big selling imported brands in Australia had limited market share in Britain because UK farmers were so well serviced by what they considered a better locally-built product.
But Goldacres NSW and Queensland sales manager, Steve Lang, said while several newcomers were eager to get a share of the solid Australian market, sales activity had generally plateaued compared to 2008 and 2009.
Some new arrivals in the market during the past decade were still struggling to gain a following.
He said while farmers were still making plenty of inquiries, this year's interest may have been cooled by low grain prices after last harvest.
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