After establishing itself quickly on Farmlands shelves, AgStar is continuing to broaden its footprint with a series of additions that extend the range beyond its original pastoral focus and into horticulture as well as home and garden applications.

When a mower goes down mid-job, there is very little time to scroll through a 200-page manual or wait for support over the phone. For contractors and large-scale farmers, downtime is measured in lost income, not inconvenience.

There is a quiet shift taking place in how farmers and contractors think about workwear. For a long time clothing sat in the background of the operation, something you wore out, replaced and did not think too much about. Now, particularly across larger scale operations and contracting businesses, it has become part of the system.

As herbicide costs climb and resistance pressures increase, many New Zealand growers are revisiting mechanical weed control - not as a step backwards but as a smarter, more flexible way forward. The Lemken Thulit weed harrow is a good example of how modern engineering has reshaped a traditional concept into a precise, crop-friendly tool suited to today’s farming systems.

Every so often a piece of research appears that does more than add another brick to the wall of agricultural science, it quietly shifts how we think about what is possible. The recent work from the University of Queensland on RNA-based biopesticides looks set to be one of those moments, not because it promises an instant commercial product but because it changes our understanding of how biological crop protection could realistically function in the field.

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 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 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.

There is a point in every cropping rotation when residue management becomes the difference between a clean start and a compromised one. Stubble may look harmless on the surface, but how it is handled determines how quickly soils warm, how evenly seedbeds form and how efficiently nutrients cycle back into the system.