Fieldays: Felton's brave gamble pays off

Felton Industries engineering manager Michael Joynt fronts National Fieldays with the company's first product for the agricultural industry -- Ag Oxijet.

Think Felton products and you think tapware and plumbing products for the home.

So when Felton turned up at the Grassroots Innovation Centre at National Fieldays with its first agricultural product it was bound to create some interest.

And it did ... enough to win it the Tru-Test Grassroots Innovation Award for the Ag Oxijet -- a new yard-wash nozzle that saves water.

Felton engineering manager, and the creative director behind the design team, Michael Joynt was at Fieldays to gauge the reaction of potential users to the new product.

He says the Ag Oxijet is based on an existing Oxijet product used to "volumise" showers -- creating a luxury shower experience by introducing air to the water flow, while reducing water use.

He says the farm version uses the same concept but is a scaled-up product -- "same physics, different application".

The team invested a significant amount of money into the Ag Oxijet because it believed it was technology farmers would pay for.

In light of stricter regulations about the water take and discharge, and the cost of reticulated water, the Oxijet makes a lot of sense.

A large number of models were made and tested on farms from Hikurangi to Taupo and fine-tuned to the point where Joynt believed they were ready for a wider audience.

"We took advice from AgResearch and set about the initial trials," says Joynt.

At first, water savings for yard wash-downs were in the 20 to 30 per cent range -- promising but not what they hoped for.

Joynt says the Ag Oxijet was further developed and savings increased to 36 to 42 per cent.

"We figure that represents a significant saving for farmers," Joynt says.

"Another benefit is that it would allow some farmers to increase stocking rates, where they might otherwise be restricted because of water availability."

He says using less water for the yard wash means less effluent to contend with, and tests showed that the time for washing was not affected.

Joynt says the response from farmers at Fieldays was overwhelming, and answered one of Felton's main concerns -- was the product too expensive.

Felton had a design for a nozzle using less expensive materials in the wings -- but Joynt says the answer to the cost question was an emphatic no -- the benefits far outweighed the cost to manufacture and market the high-quality version.

With the extra knowledge gathered at Fieldays, Felton is fine-tuning the design and planning to go to the market before Christmas.

No decisions have been made about how the marketing will be undertaken.

Joynt recommends any dairy farmers interested in this new product keep an eye on the www.felton.co.nz website.