Hawke’s Bay stump grinder’s business is booming

Jake Curd enjoys stump grinding and also being his own boss.

Eagle-eyed drivers travelling towards Hastings on Maraekakaho Road might notice a green “old dinosaur” machine with the name Stumposaurus painted on its side.

Nearby is its larger and younger sibling sporting orange livery. The yard is also home to a new mulching head and a Ford ute bearing a “Stumps” number plate.

This then is home to Hawke’s Bay Stump Grinding, a company established five years ago by Jake Curd.

Previously a mechanic and engineer for a local rural contracting company, Curd realised that there were no large stump grinders in the region and decided to build a machine himself.

But, as luck would have it, he found Stumposaurus on TradeMe, bought it and started working part-time grinding tree stumps.

Business got busier and busier so Curd left the security of full-time employment and set up his own company.

The older green Stumposaurus with the newer and larger stump grinder in the background.

As an owner-operator, he has no employees to worry about and enjoys the lifestyle of travelling all over the North Island.

As work grew, Curd bought a much larger custom-built machine that he said would probably cost $1 million today.

It uses 90 litres of diesel in an hour and helps Curd provide a quick, efficient job of grinding stumps.

It gets through jobs quickly and grinds half a metre below ground level.

Clients are mainly local arborists, forestry companies, farmers and lifestyle block holders.

The largest stump he’s ever tackled was half the size of a shipping container.

Jake Curd has designed and manufactured this mulching head which, when completed, will be put into production.

Curd’s latest invention, just about to be completed, is a mulching head that can mulch up whole trees, slash, burn piles and orchards, it leaves a finer mulch than his other machine.

The next job, related to the cyclone, that Curd hopes to complete is helping with the clean-up at Tolaga Bay, grinding up logs and slash with a stump grinder.