The costly farm machinery exchanged hands on the first day, signalling farmer spending was back with confidence, restored by a high dairy payout and improved red meat prices.
Trade exhibitors reported positive sales at the three-day field days after a subdued event marred by rain two years ago.
Fine autumn weather brought in the crowds, with gate attendances expected to surpass the 30,000 mark once final numbers were confirmed.
Work boots and outdoor clothing sold well again, with shopping bags matched by farmers lifting their sights higher.
Committee chairman Andrew Stewart was among the buyers after picking up moisture probes for his Rangiora dairy farm.
He said farmer attendances and spending was up, and the south carpark had been full by 9.30am on the first few days.
"We’ve had some really good sales early with tiny homes sold, combines sold and tractors sold. Everyone’s pretty happy and that doesn’t even include the tool guys yet, but the wee side-by-side [vehicles] are going flat out to the carpark so they will be happy too."
He said the general farming mood had lifted.
"The payout’s pretty good, grain’s all right and meat is good too.
"So sometimes the dairy sector’s up and all the others aren’t, but this time it’s everything. That seems to be flowing through to sales and people on the ground.
"In those other years when it was a wee bit quieter it was because we didn’t have that payout money and people have looked and haven’t followed through. Whereas this year it seems like they are really following through."
Mr Stewart said combine harvesters and forage harvesters with silage choppers were up around the $1m mark and a potato and carrot harvester at the site was $1.3m.
Big corporates, large family operations and perhaps farmer syndicates would be among buyers with deep pockets.
An emphasis on debt repayment would continue, but farmers were looking to buy again after several years of deferred spending, he said.
"There’s been a lot of that stuff deferred and deferred for so long with farmers knowing that can’t go much longer so guys are working out they need this year to replace the tractor because in four years’ time they will have to do their mower, so let’s start getting it all in line now. Because it’s constant and as a farmer you have to literally buy something every year virtually to keep up."
Mr Stewart said dairy farmers were looking closely at technology such as cow collars, heat detection aids for rumination and virtual body condition scoring.
"They might not necessarily be buying it now, but they can look at it and compare it here so they know which ones to go with further into in the future. The likes of [cow collar company] Halter has a massive site because that’s where things are pushing."
Of the more than 600 exhibitors, about 10% to 20% were software-related, compared with maybe 1% six years ago.
He said most farmers were moving in this direction as could be seen by weighing machines in stock yards and electronic tagging.
Technology was moving fast with the same app linking soil probes, infra-red cameras at gates and grain bin moisture monitors with alerts sent to smart phones, he said.
A popular drawcard yet again was the demonstration site with displays by large drones and heavy machinery and equipment such as mowers, rakes, bailers, cultivators, silage choppers, tele handlers and tractors.
The Agri-Innovation winner award went to Marlborough company Repost which recycles vineyard posts for farm fencing, saving thousands of tonnes of timber from landfills.
The Marlborough company’s portable hydraulic nail puller, developed for pulling nails from vineyard posts, impressed the judges.
Runner-up was Rakaia-based Plucks Engineering for the Hose Runner, a towing device that can lay or wind up 300m of 20mm alkathene hose in minutes for running portable water troughs during strip-grazing of livestock. The design was invented by Hari Hari dairy farmer Jock Nolan from the West Coast.
Other inventions in the field of 17 entries ranged from a nanobubble agritech pivot system to a towable road grader machine for farm raceways.
Mr Stewart said the winners were impressive innovations with both of them simple ideas making farming better or easier.
