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ISSUE 41
In high demand Sowing Success in Western Australia
Matt Ward, the owner of Ward Wheatbelt Hire, doesn’t often see his fleet of K-Line Ag Speedtillers®. They’re typically out for months at a time, often passing directly from one customer to the next to undertake a number of essential ground preparation tasks.
F rom the company headquarters in Waroona, south of Perth, Matt and his family supply an array of farm machinery to a vast swathe of Western Australia’s thriving wheatbelt area, stretching as far north as Geraldton, and all the way east to Esperance, on the Great Australian Bight. “We’ve got machines located all around the state and we mostly move them around within their areas,” he says. “So we might only move them a hundred kilometres or so, to the next customer. “From January right through to June, all our machines will be working somewhere. And if not, it won’t take long for them to get snapped up. Come March and April they’re all flat out.” Ward Wheatbelt Hire started in 2002 when Matt began hiring out a super spreader and a chaser bin. At last count,
lot quicker, but you’ve also got to have the horsepower for the 12.” A number of Matt’s broadacre customers have traditionally run a mix of grain crops and sheep farming. The suspension of live sheep exports has put some operations under direct financial pressure, placing more importance than ever on maximising their grain yield. “This is another area where the Speedtiller® has been very useful,” Matt says. “If a paddock’s been mainly in pasture for a few years, it’s a good tool for breaking into the cropping cycle again.” Looking forward, Matt says he is keen to add more K-Line Ag equipment to his line- up. “The last three years have been great, and I’m just waiting to see how this season goes,” he says. “We could go into deep ripping stuff, if the demand is there.”
the business now owns around 30 machines, including five of the Australian designed and built Speedtillers®. Matt says they are always in high demand for their ability to master a variety of soil and weather conditions. “The feedback I get is that they seem to be significantly better built than imported brands that are much more lightweight, which maybe were built more for European farming,” Matt says. “I don’t think European soils are as rocky or as hard as ours, I’m sure their soil has been worked to death, and they also probably get a lot more rain than we do.” Matt initially ran a number of 9.5-metre Speedtillers® among his fleet, and has since added a couple of the 12-metre versions to give his customers more choice. “The 12’s have been in high demand with the larger broadacre farms,” he says. “They’re quite stable, with six wheels on the ground instead of four. They get over the ground a
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