Winning awards matter – especially when they come directly from the farming community at Field Days. Skye and the team from Grizzly Ag share how Aussie farmers are helping shape smarter, tougher farm equipment built for local conditions.
Q: You won a couple of awards last year, one of those was from the Australian National Field Days. What did it mean to be recognised within the ag manufacturing industry?
For us it’s really important – or pleasing – to get recognition from a product development and problem-solving point of view. It’s really good to get the product out at the shows. I think it’s great that Australian National Field Days still have something like Machine of the Year. That helps put some initiative toward supporting innovation.
I know for some field day committees it must be getting too hard or too political or whatever to run that kind of thing, so it’s good they still do it. It’s a good feather in the cap and helps create some trust within the marketplace, give some credibility.
Q: I’ve heard from other ag equipment manufacturers that ag innovation can be slow. Have you found that to be the case?
It can be. There’s that saying: “Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.” It can be expensive to innovate – and to test things. The cost of doing business in Australia might turn people off. Whether that’s the issue or not, I’m not sure. But yeah, it can be a slower area.
That said, I think our market’s unique. Geographically we’re very spread out – a lot of people are isolated. So sometimes the lack of innovation might be a result of trying to preserve reliability, or make it easier to handle spare parts and maintenance. Whether that’s supplier-driven or customer-driven… it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing.
Q: Speaking of innovation and testing new products, how do you guys go about testing a product like the Wheel Track Renovator?
We’re traditionally a farming family. It’s a family business – my dad was a farmhand, and that’s how the business started. His boss let him cut up a brand-new plough, flip it over, and reconfigure it a bit – that was back in the early 80s.
Since then, we’ve always had access to a farm. Our chief product development manager, has some acreage where we do what you might call under-the-radar testing before we take anything public. That’s where a lot of things start their lives.
With the Wheel Track Renovator 2, we actually went out for about two or three weeks just to gather information. We got in the car and visited farmers – people using our original linkage unit, or people who’d bought other brands – and tried to find out what was important to them. When we started the project, we didn’t know how far we’d have to go, or what the market really needed, so that research helped us set the goalposts.
From there we ended up with five or six prototypes. The production model was version six. It was a lot of trial and error, simplification. There’s that saying – make it as simple as possible, but no simpler. That’s how we approached it.
Q: So, are field days also part of that research process for you?
They’re a really good place for natural, organic feedback – face-to-face, eye-to-eye. Phone calls are helpful, but it’s amazing how much more comfortable people feel talking to you in person.
Ideally, we’d get out on-farm as well. So much can be lost in translation. What farmers are trying to say might not be what I’m hearing – or vice versa. Sometimes it’s as simple as someone not using the machine as it was designed. I might think something needs to be improved, but it could just be set up wrong, or running at the wrong speed.
Q: Do you find farmers are open about what’s working and what’s not?
Yeah, I think we’re really lucky. Farmers are woven into the fabric of our nation.. They’re honest – they give praise when it’s deserved, and they’ll certainly tell you to pull your socks up if you need to. They cut the crap and get straight to the point.
If they’ve got a problem to solve – and there always is – they’ll tell you. That’s the great thing about agriculture, especially in Australia: there’s always something that could be done better. There’s always opportunity.
What we try to do is find the broadest possible value. We don’t want to be building one-off machines. We try to make sure whatever we put energy into is going to be something that has scope – something that hits a wide enough market around Australia.
Q: And internationally?
That’s a good question – and something we need to explore a bit more. We have patents, and we’ve registered trademarks in a couple of countries. During COVID, it wasn’t something we looked at much. But post-COVID, it’s worth revisiting export.
The challenge is competing internationally, especially with labour, energy, and rent costs – and then there’s shipping. But in the past we’ve had success. Between 2005 and 2009 we sent quite a number of machines to Russia. We’ve just sent six machines to Indonesia, and we’ve also sent quite a few to New Zealand.
Some of those were model-specific – like in Russia we sent our larger machines like deep rippers and heavy offsets. In New Zealand it was a bit more general but included machines that could handle more rock. For Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, it’s more development-country-focused – big discs, lots of weight, often for sugarcane.
Q: What does the next few years of product development look like for you?
We’ve been doing some follow-up trips just to make sure things are working well with the Wheel Track Renovator 2. I’ve just come back from a trip through Queensland and northern NSW, and after a wet summer we found the roller was blocking up on the black sticky plains country.
We’ve now made an update to that roller. I won’t say it’s unblockable, but so far it’s been really promising. It’s a small development, but it should keep that machine rolling.
We’ve also got another project going through the workshop now – I probably can’t say too much yet, but we’re hoping to have it ready for the Field Days. There’s also talk of a next model after that – but nothing on paper yet.
Q: Last one – big question to end on. What do you see as the biggest challenges or opportunities in Australian ag over the next decade or so?
I think the next big thing is going to be autonomous tractors – driverless systems. That’s where I think it’s heading.
The challenge is going to be making equipment smart enough, with the right sensors, so it can communicate with those systems – to know when to start or stop, to sense bearing issues or blockages and send that information back to the tractor. Some people say we’re a long way off, but I’m not so sure. I think the pieces are already there. But that’s just me, plenty of folks say that we’re a long way off that.
The key is going to be reliability. It needs to be something that can be overridden – something a farmer can fix. Too much of what’s out there now is overly complex. You can’t afford to have a broken machine sitting in the paddock without a way to fix it.
Thanks to Skye for taking the time to chat with us. We appreciate their insights, innovation, and ongoing commitment to supporting Aussie farmers. Skye will be at this year’s Field Days in October – drop by, say hello, and let the team know what matters most to you and your farm. Alternatively, check out their range of equipment here.
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