Based in Mid Canterbury, one of New Zealand’s most productive agricultural regions Allen Custom Drills is an owner-operated business focused on designing and manufacturing air seeder drills built for reliability, accuracy and longevity in real paddock conditions.

The Allen Custom Drills name is well established across New Zealand and has earned a strong reputation among contractors and farmers who need machinery that can cope with challenging soils, tight weather windows and the demands of modern cropping and pasture renewal systems.

Twenty-five years is a long time in agricultural engineering, particularly in the soil engagement space where fashion can often outpace function. Yet the Amazone Catros has not simply survived a quarter of a century. It has steadily evolved, refined and strengthened its place as one of the benchmark compact disc harrows in modern farming systems. Now, with the launch of the Catros+ 12003-2TX at Agritechnica 2025, Amazone has again lifted the bar for high-output shallow cultivation.

There has been a noticeable shift in tone from parts of government over the past year and for rural contractors that change matters, because tone shapes behaviour just as much as regulation does.

There has been a growing gap in recent years between how New Zealand farmers understand their production systems and how those systems are perceived by consumers, both at home and offshore. That gap is not always built on facts. It is often built on headlines, assumptions and overseas production models that bear little resemblance to how sheep and beef farming actually works here. The Making Meat Better initiative exists squarely in that space, not as a marketing slogan but as an attempt to reconnect the story of New Zealand red meat with the realities of how it is produced.

There has been a growing gap in recent years between how New Zealand farmers understand their production systems and how those systems are perceived by consumers, both at home and offshore.

There is a growing expectation in New Zealand farming that machinery should not just do a job, but solve a problem. With tighter weather windows, higher input costs and pressure to minimise passes, establishment equipment is increasingly judged not by how well it performs in perfect conditions but by how effectively it adapts to the realities of the paddock.

In a paddock where timing is tight, seasons are unforgiving and every pass counts, having an implement that can combine tasks without compromising results is a tangible advantage. The Farmgard Combovator Bed Forming System-Maxi-P is one such tool designed to bridge the gap between cultivation and bed forming in a single, efficient operation.

The machine has now been released, with the first model displayed at Southern Field Days 2026, demonstrating Lemken New Zealand’s dedication to providing reliable, high-performance equipment for New Zealand farmers.

There are parts of a paddock that tell their story openly and others that keep it hidden well below the surface and for many farmers and contractors the most limiting factor in crop performance sits out of sight in compacted layers that restrict roots, water and nutrient movement. Compaction is rarely dramatic but over time it quietly erodes yield potential and resilience, particularly in systems that rely on repeated traffic, heavier machinery and narrow working windows.

Slugs continue to plague the industry as a major pest through the early establishment phase of newly sown crops. A slug bait is required to mitigate the risk of slugs attacking the crop; however not all slug baits are built the same.

When the conversation turns to strip-tillage, it is rarely about fashion or trend. It is about finding a practical balance between agronomy and efficiency, preparing a seedbed that supports strong early crop growth while avoiding unnecessary soil disturbance. The Horizon SPX Strip-Till Cultivator sits firmly in that space offering a system that works the soil only where it matters, directly in the planting row, while leaving the remainder of the paddock protected and undisturbed.

For soil tillage that demands intensive loosening and effective incorporation, the Amazone Cenius-2TX trailed cultivator is built to deliver versatility, reliability and solid cost performance across a wide range of farming systems.

The new-generation Forigo mulchers are changing pasture renovation.

There are machines that fit into a spraying programme and then there are machines that reshape it. With maximum power of 306 hp, a 7,000 litre tank, boom widths stretching to 48 metres and operating speeds of up to 30 km/h the third-generation Amazone Pantera 7004 is firmly in the second category.

There are certain machinery brands that carry weight in New Zealand cropping and cultivation circles, not just because of the equipment they produce but because of the systems thinking that sits behind them.

There is a point in every season when preparation gives way to commitment, because once the drill goes in the ground the decisions are largely made and the outcome becomes a matter of execution rather than intention. That moment is where the Kverneland U-Drill earns its keep not by promising miracles but by bringing together cultivation, consolidation and seeding into a single controlled process that suits the way modern New Zealand farms operate.

When it comes to seedbed preparation that balances strength with finesse, the Rata 812 Trailing Maxitill sits comfortably in territory that suits both contractors and large-scale farmers who need reliable output across changing conditions.

The arrival of the Geoforce option to the Kverneland Optima SX range in New Zealand will matter for a simple reason that sits behind every good planting job, because once the seed is in the ground you are no longer making decisions, you are living with them and in a season where planting windows can be short and soil conditions can change from one end of a paddock to the other the value is not in clever features for their own sake but in the way a machine holds depth, holds spacing and holds consistency when the easy parts of the field are finished and the real work starts.

It takes grit and determination to become farm owners without a family farm to fall back on.

High performing farmers stopping slugs in their tracks.