Award winner: let bright ideas shine

Hastings technological and mechanical adventurist Chris Folkers, the FarmWalker Pasture Meter and the Vodafone ICT Innovation Technology Award he won during Fieldays last month at Mystery Creek, near Hamilton. Photo / Paul Taylor

Coming up with good ideas seems second nature to Hastings-based agricultural and horticultural innovator Chris Folkers, who claimed major honours for his ingenuity at the National Fieldays last month

But, like other smaller-scale innovators, he says there must be a large number of good ideas in the regions that struggle to see the light of day because of a shortage of developmental opportunities.

It's not the first time Hawke's Bay innovation has been recognised at Fieldays, said to be the biggest agricultural expo in the Southern Hemisphere, and Mr Folkers hopes winning the Vodafone ICT Innovation Technology Award will help promote great ideas in regions beyond the bigger players and also promote his own work as well.

"I'm sure a lot of good ideas don't get off the ground," he said.

From Holland but New Zealander for more than 12 years, Mr Folkers is based at LandWise, in Ruahapia Rd, near Hastings, where he developed the FarmWalker Pasture Meter - a "little box" that farmers can use to help better manage their paddocks and pastures.

The little box, which can be retrofitted on any rising plate meter, is the key to recording data as a farmer paces the paddocks testing the pasture.

Data transfers meter-to-cellphone in-paddock, as the farmer does his or her farm walk, without the need for cellphone coverage.

Back within coverage, the phone uploads the GPS-plotted data to the web, where it images paddock cover and seamlessly shares that information with other tools, including feed-budgetting software like Feedflo, which he also developed.

"You see how your grass is distributed in your paddocks," Mr Folkers said, "and that will open up opportunities, like targeted fertiliser applications and things like that."

Trained initially in mechanical engineering, Mr Folkers worked in aerodynamic research, including developing software, before heading for New Zealand in 2003, and working as a consultant with Dairy NZ.

He came to Hawke's Bay five years ago and has worked on many projects to help solve problems and enable greater efficiencies in the agricultural and horticultural sectors.

Mr Folkers developed FarmWalker because of calls for an integrated system able to work with any plate meter, and eliminate the double-handling of writing information down and manually inputting via computer.

A prototype was developed in a fortnight, but he had to ensure it worked, and "sat on it for a while", he said.

Other work he has been involved in includes developing an automated heat detection system which provided an early warning for cows on heat, technological monitoring of moth traps, and photographic monitoring of grapes for detection of botrytis, both available as apps on a mobile phone.