UPBEAT MUSIC Captions by Jessica Boell. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 Hello and welcome to Rural Delivery. National Fieldays has long been attracting ideas from agricultural inventors through its Innovation Centre and Innovation Awards. Many of the prototypes and ideas introduced there have been developed further through commercial partnerships. This week we learn about the collaboration between a pair of electric bike designers and Locus Research to create an electric utility farm bike. We take a look around historic Te Whanga Station in Wairarapa, home of Te Whanga Angus. And we visit the citrus bowl of Northland at mandarin harvest time. Anthony Clyde and Darryl Neal have been involved in designing and building electric bikes for nearly 10 years. When they joined forces to work on their dream projects, they produced a prototype of an electric bike designed for on-farm use. That bike won them two design awards at National Fieldays, and an introduction to Locus Research. Darryl and I have both been in the electric bicycle industry for a decade. I'd always been very interested in twin-hub cargo electric bicycle. Darryl had his ranger concept, like a DOC bike ` a forest park electric bicycle. So we combined those together, and then pretty early on we decided we've really gotta drop the bicycle nature out of it to free up that space for a huge battery. So that was the birth of the utility twin-hub electric bike. Right from the beginning, utility was the key ` simplicity, ease of use. I s'pose it's starting at the deep end, making a utility bike that can handle the NZ dairy farm situation, but I think electric drive has a huge future in the farming industry, cos it's low RPM, high torque. With this awards, it gave us some funding, and Locus Research was` supported one of the awards, so that helped us with our initial branding, to really step back, take an objective look, be clear. We knew what we had. It's a bit different than in your shed, but we both realised the only way this will succeed is with a fair bit of momentum and additional skills. Locus Research is a product development consultancy, so what that means is that we help people who have an idea or a good concept and we help them take it from a concept through to something that's real, commercially viable. We've got quite a strong tradition of being at the Fieldays. A lot of the work we do is in that agri-tech sector, and we came across Ant and Darryl there with their prototype bike, and we were just immediately impressed by it. A lot of the work that we do at a product design level is in that 3D modelling to make sure that everything is just right, and then our team here are just brilliant at getting that work done. They're very experienced with working with manufacturers, so not only just getting the design looking right and working right, but getting it made right as well. It operates slightly differently, and it lets you work in a slightly different way. So the early customers that we've had have been great because we've learnt from them how they've been using the bike differently, and we're now teaching people how to operate the bike and change the way that they operate on a farm so that they can get the most out of it. We're finding that it takes about a week for guys to really wrap their head around how they can operate best with the bike, and then once they've taken that time, they start to see a whole bunch of good benefit out of it. The key point is it's a twin-hub driven electric bike, so the drive systems are in both hubs, so instead of motor in the centre of the bike, we've distributed it into the hubs, which freed up a lot of space for the battery for the energy. That keeps all your centre of mass low, which makes it very very easy to ride, which is exactly what you want for a utility bike. No chain, no drive chain. The drive units are in the centre here ` a brushless high-torque motor. So there's no issues with chain wear. The energy is distributed on both hubs, which actually gives you an interesting functionality. It makes it very manoeuvrable because you can pull the front around as well. And it just freed up the space a) to have a large battery, b) semi-step-through, which, again, seems pretty important for a utility bike. There's a lot of load options here. Also, the frame is a mounting base, so you've got all your accessory points all over the bike. The weight is around 58 kilos; battery is 17 kilos, so the battery's removable, which then makes the whole bike pretty easy to pop up on to the back of a ute. We've even had them off the back of a car on a bike rack. We've designed it to do a full day's work in a variety of uses, so up to 100 K's on easy terrain. Um, maybe around 50-60 of hard terrain, but the feedback we've got from farmers ` that's a fair bit of` fair bit of travel. Most farmers, it seems in the NZ context, it's around 20km-30km. You just wheel your bike back to your shed, you've got your charging port here, plug it in. It's an intelligent charger. It's around 50c of power to give you 100km of range versus about 14 litres of fuel for a quad, so... You can also charge the battery off bike, so you can slip the battery out, take it back to the house if you don't have power, and it's ready to go the next day. We realised it's also an energy hub, so we've got 12 volt DC, we've got USB, so you can charge power tools out the back of the farm. Again, as a utility bike, we want low maintenance, so the motors are a sealed unit, and the battery's a sealed unit. It's very modular. So the only things that require maintenance, really ` tyres, brakes. It has self-diagnostics, so if something does have an issue or something's damaged, it has error codes to tell you maybe your throttle's been damaged or the motor cable's been damaged. The top speed of the bike is 45km/h. We felt for this type of bike that's about right. The feedback we're getting from the farmers is that's plenty enough for this type of bike. It's a trade-off between top speed and low-end torque, so we feel we've got the best balance. A lot of people have commented that the ease of use ` nothing gets hot; you can't flood it; you can lay it down in the grass. We've had people who've never ridden a bike let alone a farm bike in their life have hopped on and taken it up some reasonable terrain, so it's very unique relative to other farm vehicles ` very very easy to use, and very safe. We're still learning what this bike is for, but our feeling is it's a utility bike for a medium farm, like dairy farms, not so much a big back-country bike. But the vineyards ` huge interest already; Department of Conservation; um, tourism, eco-tourism. We've had a lot of interest, people wanting to put bunches of people on these and take them around, you know, their beautiful farms. This bike categorises as a 50cc scooter, so you only need a driver's licence, yet it has a low-down torque of about a 150cc farm bike. So we hope within six to nine months to be ready to release a road-legal version. UBCO ` well, it's short for Utility Bike Company, and, really, it reflects the mindset behind the whole bike; it's there to do a job. When we looked at the name and it was just a contraction of that simple description, it just resonated. It really encapsulated what it's there to do, which is just to redefine how people are working outdoors and do that simple job simply and effectively. We'll be back soon to meet Scott Gudsell, farm manager at Te Whanga Angus in Wairarapa. 1 Welcome back. In 1936 Te Whanga Station was purchased by PJ Borthwick, and a long association with NZ and Australia's meat industries by the Borthwick family began. The station also had a role as a training farm for returned servicemen. That teaching tradition continues today with cadets from Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre being given an opportunity to gain work experience. But the farm's main focus is its Angus stud. It's about 10% flat to rolling country. Most of that's been developed into forages ` either herbs or new grasses ` in the last three years, and then the rest is all breeding hill country. We're carrying about 18,000 stock units on 2135 effective hectares. The history of the farm, it's been in the Borthwick family for a long time. It was originally part of Brancepeth, which was owned by the Williams family. And, uh, Borthwicks have had it for a number of years. We've got our 80th sale coming up this year to give a bit of an idea, but, yeah, a lot of history behind it. This country is very strong autumn and spring country. The weakness is we get 750 mils of rainfall a year and grow between 4� and 5� ton, so very summer dry, very testing on stock in those times. It is an expensive property. We're running a team of five of us at the moment. A lot of dog work on hills, but also requiring guys that can think for themselves. We're getting in Taratahi cadets on second-year programme, and, sort of, encouraging young guys to get ahead that way. I've employed one of them here. But it's a never-ending issue. Staff don't always hang around and getting the right people isn't always easy. As far as staffing goes, this place does have a bit of an appeal. The stock numbers that we're carrying, a lot of the young guys like running a dog, and another appeal, to me, anyway, is the stud. Having 300 registered Angus calving females, that's something else they can string to their bow. We've probably developed 90% of the flat to rolling country that we can, so now it's a matter of getting that in rotation, fencing off waterways, still more fences to revert to conventional. There's been a big development programme going on the last, probably, eight years. A lot of capital expenditure on fencing, so things are pretty well up to scratch in those terms, so now it's probably a matter of getting` spending the money to make the dollars rather than on the infrastructure. Right now with the sheep we've got some early ewes that are getting pre-lamb shorn. Get a nice product on the way out. Condition's probably not quite where we want it to be with those girls given the season we've had, but they're destined to lamb early on plantain and lambs away early to the works. We've also just pulled rams out of hoggets and they're heading on to herb crops, and then next job will be scanning. The wool isn't a huge focus for us, but it is management advantage shearing them through picking up our lighter ewes, treating them differently. They'll get drafted off and get fed better, and increased lamb survival and lamb birth weight, so it's more about the management than the wool. The breed of the sheep is a bit of a liquorice allsort. It started from an old-school Romney, and then went through a stage with a Lincoln, a Finn went through at some stage, and now we're back to a Wairarapa group Romney and just trying to type those sheep up. Most of the animals go store just because of our dry environment, so it's about putting a presentable store animal in front of them. We're scanning, sorta, early to mid-170s, and lambing 130% to 140%. Weaning weights last year around 30 K, so there's room for improvement there, And I think the next few years we'll start reaping the rewards of all the development we've done in terms of foragers. The stud's been run by Borthwicks for` this'll be the 80th year. Originally purchased the cattle from Pharazyns and Waiterenui studs in the Hawke's Bay. Te Whanga has a pretty long history of producing some good cattle. Breed characteristics are still very important to us. An animal that's got good feet and legs, ability to walk, get in calf every year; every female that's in the herd is ready to calf as a 2-year-old and every year from then on. And an easy-doing animal ` obviously we don't grow a lot of grass through the year, so something that can convert not a lot of grass into a lot of product. Um, we have recently purchased some more cattle from Farfield Stud, which have got arguably some of the best performance genetics in the country. So that's more of a focus on low birth weight, high growth rate and targeting our yearling sale, which is September. For the June sale, we're putting up around 25 bulls, which is only 30% of our bull crop. And with the addition of this new stud we'll be closer to 10%-15%, so it'll be a real elite June sale, and up to 120 yearlings for spring sale. Clients, typically, for our 2-year-old sale, 90% of them are Wairarapa-based. We've got a few further afield, and for our spring sale, we're stretching as far as Taranaki, Wanganui. Lot of dairy guys getting into it and using beef genetics over the dairy herds to get more value in their business. The eating quality is definitely becoming more of a focus. We are seeing premiums in some works, probably still not enough, but we are always trying to incorporate carcass characteristics, high emphasis on marbling and on muscle area. We're about 500 calving females here at Te Whanga, and now with the purchase of these new stud animals, we've gone from a one-third stud to` commercial ratio, to two-thirds stud. Um, yeah, so everything's farmed the same; stud cows are out on the hills doing the hard graft just the same as the commercials are. We'll return soon to find out about citrus production in Kerikeri. 1 Hello again. Gisborne and Northland are the main citrus-producing regions of NZ. In May this year we visited Bradley Davies on his Kerikeri orchard at Satsuma harvest time. Primarily, we're citrus growers. We've got about 16 canopy hectares of Satsuma mandarins, which are a well-known product to NZ consumer. And typically Japanese varieties of Satsumas. The background ` parents were involved, my father was involved in horticulture in a big way and in citrus in a big way, and through the years recognised opportunities with Satsumas, um, from a` from the point of view of them being a sought-after product, and also opportunity to possibly get a foothold in Japan as a market, as an export market for NZ citrus. This sort of microclimate it's recognised for and the ability to` while it's often challenging, to produce a product that's got that little bit of extra taste. They've got some characteristics that are hard to replicate in other areas, so that's, I think, why Kerikeri got a name for itself for citrus. The industry typically produces about 9000 to 10,000 tons of Satsuma mandarins a year over a, sort of, three- to four-month period. The growing regions being Northland and Gisborne. There are some other areas, but those are the two main growing regions. Northland produces a slightly higher volume ` over 50% of that production in total, and we ourselves produce about 400-500 tonnes of the national volume. The same challenges that most of the sectors are facing around risk` biosecurity risks are obviously a major. Um, continuing to grow market ` I think we're doing a good job of that. We're getting` We're growing the market share and continuing to improve the taste attributes of the product. Um, I think that's key. Um, yeah, so we've got to a place now where the supply-demand balance is a lot better than it used to be, so I would like to think that we're in a more stable position than we were five or six years ago. Typically up in Northland here, we're chasing the early season. We're chasing an early opportunity into Japan for a limited volume of product of very high spec. And that takes 30-odd per cent of the volume out of Northland to Japan. And the balance of the volume, obviously the bulk of the volume therefore is sold in the NZ domestic market. From an industry perspective, you're only talking about, sort of, 15-20% of export volume going offshore, so very reliant on the NZ domestic market. We monitor fruit from early in the year to see how it's tracking as far as maturity goes, see if the maturity is building on a fortnightly basis. And as we get closer to harvest, we then go to sampling weekly because you can get variation between different areas, different blocks, maturity areas. And then just prior to harvest, when we've got enough colour, we'll then start sampling by maturity area by colour to see how we're tracking. So we've got industry standards around Brix and acid and the combined ratio of Brix acid. They vary slightly between the NZ domestic market and the export market. So once we get close to harvest, we bring in a sample. That sample is then destructively tested to ensure that we're meeting those standards, or if we aren't, then we cannot harvest. The Japanese market chase is a smaller-sized profile of fruit. We work on diameter measurements, so a 50mm-60mm fruit is their ideal. So it is a smaller profile than typically the NZ domestic market would be after. Um, and that fruit has to be pretty much totally blemish free, and then an internal` it needs to have an internal Brix of over 10� to 11, and an acid below 1.2, which gives a ratio up around 10:1. This is a typical tree. This has actually been harvested already. It's had two picks already. So what's left here is very little in the way of fruit. You can see it's a relatively open-structured tree. We have to maintain an open structure to keep on top of pests and disease. Uh, obviously, our fruit-carrying wood is this light Spring growth here that will carry our fruit for next year. We promote that. We prune the trees to keep them open and also remove the older material out of the trees to, again, keep on top of disease and suchlike. The trees are planted on a contour. The trees are up on a mound so that we're bringing any water away from the root system of the tree to the middle of the row. We're using reflective material on the ground to capture any light and heat and get it back up into the tree to improve sweetness of the fruit. And during the summer` during the early period of the year, we will deficit irrigate, so we'll actually stress the trees such as they do with other products ` grapes and the likes ` to bring up the sugars. In Kerikeri here it's quite a humid environment, so fungal pressures can be quite high, so we do have to maintain a reasonably vigilant fungicide programme during the year. Um, and then from a pest` insect pest perspective, we engage IPMs management practices, so we're using` we're monitoring, we're monitoring levels of pests and beneficials and making decisions based on that balance, and then using pretty much target-specific products to control pests. For more information on these and other stories, you can visit our website. Get there via tvnz.co.nz, or if you've missed an episode, you can watch it on TVNZ On Demand, key word ` Rural Delivery. Nest week we're in South Canterbury to meet a sheep breeder introducing Charollais sheep genetics into a Suffolk and South Suffolk breeding operation. We visit David and Sarah Smith at Mt Watkins Station, who've been involved in a Red Meat Profit Partnership programme. And we find out how ArborGen is continuing to improve radiata pine genetics for the forestry industry. Thanks for joining us. We hope to see you again next time. Captions by Jessica Boell. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016