Waikato Herald
  • Waikato Herald home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Rural
  • Lifestyle
  • Lotto results

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Lifestyle
  • Lotto results

Locations

  • Hamilton
  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Matamata & Piako
  • Cambridge
  • Te Awamutu
  • Tokoroa & South Waikato
  • Taupō & Tūrangi

Weather

  • Thames
  • Hamilton
  • Tokoroa
  • Taumarunui
  • Taupō

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Waikato News

Fieldays innovation award winners solve primary industry challenges

Waikato Herald
22 Jun, 2021 04:12 AM2 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Springarm Products Limited from Te Awamutu has developed an unbreakable ballcock arm. Photo / Stephen Barker, Barker Photography

Springarm Products Limited from Te Awamutu has developed an unbreakable ballcock arm. Photo / Stephen Barker, Barker Photography

This year's Fieldays innovation award winners have shown how Kiwi ingenuity and cutting-edge ideas are tackling the primary industry's biggest challenges.

The Fieldays innovation event organisers received more than 65 entries from across New Zealand for awards in categories including Prototype, Early Stage, Growth and Scale, and Young Innovator.

The categories had a new format this year, following the innovation life cycle. Fieldays innovation event manager Gail Hendricks says: "The categories were organised to provide the support, mentoring and exposure innovators needed to bring their revolutionary products to market or grow market share."

Winner of the Prototype Award was Springarm Products Limited from Te Awamutu. Inventor Ric Awburn developed a ballcock arm that won't break: Instead of snapping when put under pressure, the Springarm flexes, saving farmers water, time, money and stress.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Cropsy Technologies from Auckland took home two Fieldays Innovation Awards: the Early Stage Award and the Young Innovator's Award. The team of five young engineers have created a crop analytics system, comprising scalable AI-enabled hardware.

Co-founder and COO of Cropsy Technologies, Leila Deljkovic, with their innovation, crop analytics system. Photo / Stephen Barker, Barker Photography
Co-founder and COO of Cropsy Technologies, Leila Deljkovic, with their innovation, crop analytics system. Photo / Stephen Barker, Barker Photography

Co-founder and chief operating officer Leila Deljkovic says: "Growers can't monitor every vine in their vineyard, and they don't have the resources to. Being engineers we thought, how can we help?"

Their innovation consists of a camera with machine learning capability that is attached to the front of a tractor. It can look out for diseases, count bunches of vines, detect missing or dying vines and anything that's wrong with the plants. This enables growers to potentially minimise crop loss, estimate yield to improve supply chains, and replant with precision.

The Growth and Scale Award went to IGS Limited, a company based in Scotland and the United States, for its Growth Towers. It delivers total Control Environment Agriculture having the potential to deliver maximum yield with quality and consistency, using 50 per cent less energy and 80 per cent less labour.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

IGS Limited CEO, David Farquhar, says their product has the potential to enhance and enable sustainable food production for local growers.

Discover more

Fieldays is back: What to expect this year

10 Jun 05:00 PM

Raglan bee farm is buzzing to set foot in international market

17 Jun 02:09 AM

Fieldays is back on track: 53rd event opened its gates today

16 Jun 03:20 AM

Local farmer wins Fieldays Innovation award

23 Jun 09:00 PM
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Waikato News

Waikato Herald

Man high on mushrooms crashes car into garage, with a preschooler on his lap

Waikato Herald

'A newfound faith': Rapist says the Lord will help him as he’s sent to jail

Sport

Netball: Magic narrowly lose to Pulse after scores still tied in final minutes


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Waikato News

Man high on mushrooms crashes car into garage, with a preschooler on his lap
Waikato Herald

Man high on mushrooms crashes car into garage, with a preschooler on his lap

The garage collapsed on top of Freeman Ruhe's vehicle but the pair escaped injury.

14 Jul 08:00 AM
'A newfound faith': Rapist says the Lord will help him as he’s sent to jail
Waikato Herald

'A newfound faith': Rapist says the Lord will help him as he’s sent to jail

14 Jul 07:00 AM
Netball: Magic narrowly lose to Pulse after scores still tied in final minutes
Sport

Netball: Magic narrowly lose to Pulse after scores still tied in final minutes

14 Jul 04:28 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Waikato Herald e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Waikato Herald
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP