Year in Review: Hawke’s Bay stump grinder’s business is booming

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

The Country looks back at some of the biggest and best stories of the past 12 months, including readers' favourites, huge news events and those yarns that gave us a glimpse into rural lives and livelihoods across the country.

Originally published August 27.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.