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By Richard Rennie
The sight of the Gwazae Ground Probe Aerator advancing along a golf green should not be cause for alarm on the fairway, despite first impressions. Its pneumatic “thump” and relentless mechanical movement bring recollections of a Terminator like machine on the march; however its purpose is far more benign.
Rather than destruction and chaos, the Gwazae promises to deliver healthier soils and better profits for anyone operating high value playing fields or managing valuable horticultural blocks.
The highly specialised machine delivers compressed air blasts into the subsoil to break up soil pans and compacted soil profiles that inhibit drainage and earthworm activity.
The Gwazae has been designed and built under license with large Tauranga engineering firm Page Macrae. It represents a breakthrough for a company more familiar with designing bulk handling equipment for shipping and forestry. It also represents the hopes of founder Ian Macrae in breaking into a valuable European market for turf management equipment.
“We take the wide open spaces here, whether man made or natural for granted. In Europe however much money is spent on maintaining sports fields and golf courses. These fields are subjected to a lot more pounding and traffic than we get here with our lower population densities and proportionately greater spaces,” he says.
Here in New Zealand the Gwazae has enjoyed success with horticultural operators wanting to redress the soil damage inflicted by machinery compaction.
Repetitive travelling up and down vines in kiwifruit orchards and vineyards creates a hard pan on the soil surface and compresses soil granules, making water movement and aeration difficult.
Rain and irrigation water runs off, while the beneficial impact of earthworm activity is lost. Hard pans of subsoil can form that will make root penetration difficult, affecting the movement of fertilisers through the soil profile and crop productivity. With its aeration application the Gwazae literally blasts pans apart, opening up the profile.
Interest is also growing in the turf management role the aerator can play in reducing compaction that causes pugging and loss of player days due to water ponding on the soil surface.
However the real potential for the Gwazae lies in European turf where heavier use and wetter weather compound compaction problems. Turf management company R & K Kensett will act as agents there.
Engineering partners Page Macrae enjoys a 50 year history of designing and building very heavy, specialised equipment, including 10 tonne hydraulic buckets for ship loading and strippers for log harvesting.
While the 1200kg Gwazae machine would appear to be a straightforward machine to build and deliver to the European market, it bought its own complexities with its hydraulic and control systems.
However project manager Bruce Ennis says the real challenge with the Gwazae only began when the company contemplated the EU market.
“As a company we are more comfortable building components for other companies and selling them on. Here we were required to source components, including compressors, hydraulic systems and control panels, and ensure they could meet the EU standards for health and safety.”
Those standards are symbolised by the CE Mark label, now familiar to more Kiwi consumers. It is the symbol for the Union’s standards and directives on product safety and quality.
Prior to CE, directives coming in many of the EU member states had their own regime for regulating the products in question. Each had evolved in isolation to other countries within the EU. Often these became a barrier to trade in themselves, and another headache for anyone trying to get in from half way around the world.
Under the new CE directives, products accepted in one country must now be accepted in all, enabling that product to bear the distinctive CE mark. However there are still defined standards on all areas of build and safety that have to pass assessment in approved testing facilities and labs.
Managing the daily demands of several large scale engineering projects and negotiating the ins and outs of EU standard protocol saw Bruce Ennis engage the services of Auckland firm CEproof.
The company specialises in gaining approval across all standards and directives on its client’s products for sale in the EU, gaining them the CE mark.
While originally specialising in boats, the company had recently gained approval for another specialist machine. The Jet Patcher road repair machine gained approval with its all Kiwi design and build and is now fully approved throughout the EU.
The Jet Patcher was able to be launched into the EU after also receiving support from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, which CE Proof work with frequently.
Neil Spencer of CEproof says the ground aerator threw up particular safety challenges. The machine operates by hydraulic rams driving a rod into the ground, followed by compressed air being injected, all in a continuous process that is impressive to watch, but also dangerous in the wrong hands.
Spencer is effusive in his praise for the role NZTE has played in getting Kiwi products into the EU, bringing on the ground knowledge to bear in highly specialised areas of product approval and requirements.
“We found the whole process extremely valuable, a huge learning curve and very satisfying to know all the ins and outs were covered before we air freighted our first unit over to the UK, says Bruce Ennis.
“Without the expertise of a company like CEproof, really it is very hard to achieve approval from this side of the world”
With three more machines lined up for shipment Bruce Ennis is able to focus on doing what he and his team do well, building solid, specialised machinery.
“I believe few Kiwi companies are strategic in their export focus and underestimate the time involved in getting approval for a trading bloc like the EU. We had multiple suppliers to deal with and deadlines to meet for shipment, you really don’t have the time or resources to get to grips with standards and directives yourself.”
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