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Hole lot of work in dibbler on show at Fieldays
12 June, 2013
Hole lot of work in dibbler on show at Fieldays
Seems a fairly simple thing to dig a straight hole but it took University of Waikato senior lecturer in engineering Dr Mike Duke and his team several months to perfect a machine which drills holes accurate enough to ensure pine cuttings grow straight.
The hole-drilling dibbler was built from scratch at Waikato University for treestock company ArborGen, which uses it to drill holes in nursery beds for pine cuttings to be planted in.
Cuttings which don’t grow perfectly straight are rejected before being planted out into forests and Dr Duke says the machine has helped the company improve productivity by an estimated 30%.
“They had a lot of rejects because the holes were not straight and varied in depth,” Dr Duke says.
ArborGen NZ’s Operations Manager Mark Ryan says: “We are New Zealand’s largest nursery producer of pine trees for the forest sector. The company plants many millions of trees each year and reject trees are a significant and unwanted expense.”
The dibbler – which is towed behind a tractor - is entirely computer controlled and can be adjusted for different types of tree, varying soil hardness, holes of different depths and to operate at varying speeds.
“It’s all adjustable from the cab,” Dr Duke says.
“It’s a very professional piece of machinery that is now fully operational and doing a great job.”
Dr Duke is putting the dibbler on display at the National Agricultural Fieldays – which run from today to Saturday at Mystery Creek, near Hamilton. The University of Waikato is a strategic partner of Fieldays.
It will be on show in the Innovation Centre where it’s entered into the annual innovation competition and while Dr Duke doesn’t expect to win, it’s a good opportunity to show off the work being done by Waikato University academics, many of whom have a proven track record in the agritech field.
“The main objective is to demonstrate real-world solutions in the local agritech industry,” he says.
The $110,000 project was jointly funded by the company and TechNZ.
ENDS
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