Lightbulb moment leads to innovate invention
Harihari farmer and backyard engineer Jock Nolan, left, and Plucks Engineering managing director Neil Pluck have joined together to manufacture and sell the Hose Runner, a device to shift stockwater hoses. PHOTO: TIM CRONSHAW
A farmer can thank his children for a lightbulb moment to take the back-breaking work out of shifting stockwater hoses.A farmer can thank his children for a lightbulb moment to take the back-breaking work out of shifting stockwater hoses.
Harihari farmer and backyard engineer Jock Nolan invented the Hose Runner, which can lay out or wind up 300 metres of 20mm alkathene hose in minutes.
A quadbike tows the trailer carrying a large hose reel and portable water tank, which has just been commercialised in a partnership with Canterbury firm, Plucks Engineering, based in Rakaia.
Plucks has the licence to manufacture and sell the equipment with the farmer, who owns the patent, collecting a royalty from sales.
The innovation is expected to be useful for intensive graziers running many cow mobs who may have water issues.
Mr Nolan runs a 200-cow dairy farm on the Coast and was watching his children when the idea clicked.
"One day we were sitting at the dinner table with the kids and they had these plastic bales out of a toy bailer and were rolling them down the table to each other. And I thought, if I added a piece of string hooked to that it would roll around the outside of it, and that’s when a lightbulb just went on."
He said the Hose Runner worked well for running portable water troughs and water lines to stock in strip grazing.
The hose reel would save him at least two hours of work a day during winter. Winding up 300m of alkathene hose by hand would take 30-40 minutes for one mob of cattle and then the farmer had to wrestle with the loops to make sure it did not unravel, he said.
"Through years of pushing and heaving pipe around and getting frustrated with time and effort it took to do it I came up with the idea. It’s just a frustrating job and when it gets frustrating it just doesn’t get done, basically. So if it’s easy the job will get done. It’s just a quick and easy, effective way of rolling up long lengths of pipe that involves no motors, no electronics and just ground momentum."
Mr Nolan took only one prototype to get a working model, with further adjustments made afterwards.
"But Plucks have taken it on and put their own touch on it which rectified a few problems and made it a lot more streamlined."
The portable hose runner saves ground being pugged by livestock during the winter as many farms have concrete troughs positioned in the middle or corner of a paddock.
The hose is hooked on to a post next to the trough with the spring-loaded reel brake loosened slightly so it can be driven to a site for the portable water trough where cattle are being strip grazed in between electric fencing. The brake prevents the hose unravelling to become a bird’s nest and is released when the hose is rolled up.
Portable troughs will help farmers keep within rules that state animals are unable to walk 25 metres in mud to water.
Plucks Engineering managing director Neil Pluck said he was driving home after demonstrating a calf trailer less than a year ago when he got a call from Mr Nolan.
"Jock rang out of the blue and he was describing everything over the phone and I knew about the double break fence and stock having to walk to water, but didn’t know the detail and what he was describing made so much sense. It sounded like the product that Plucks like making."
The partnership was sealed when the farmer sent drone clips of the hose runner at work.
Mr Pluck said his senior team, including a draughtsman, developed the device further, with Mr Nolan’s support, and used his same philosophy of ground momentum to roll the reel.
"We could see even though we have nothing to do with this side of farming the benefit of this because we know when we have to lay out effluent hose which is often 90mm it’s just a horrendous job, let alone trying to wind it back in again."
He said the patent was being expanded to Australia for future sales. Other uses possibly included shifting hoses at parks and reserves or even rolling up electrical cable, in the future.
The Hose Runner was on public display for the first time at the South Island Agricultural Field Days and was runner-up among a field of 17 entries in the Agri-Innovations Awards.
Mr Pluck said impressed farmers had told him about the difficulty of getting even good staff to lay out and roll back hoses because it was exhausting work.
He said there were health and safety benefits with the machinery preventing staff injuries.
Mr Nolan enjoyed working on innovative farm projects after completing a basic welding course when he was 15 at Telford Polytech. "It’s sort of like a hobby for me and I like mucking around the workshop. My farm is full of stuff which works for our farm, but this is the first thing which I thought could be sold commercially. I’m no Albert Einstein or anything."