WITH annual turnover on track to top $50m this year, one of Australia’s leading farm sprayer suppliers is bullish about its prospects.

Adelaide-based Croplands Equipment’s Brendan Deck was talking up the potential of its up-dated flagship self propelled (SP) units, also its burgeoning trailer sprayer range, at the company’s big 2010 product launch.

Staged at the Roseworthy campus of the University of Adelaide (formerly known as the Roseworthy Agricultural College) in South Australia’s Borossa Valley, it’s evident the new machinery mammoths of broadacre paddocks will become an increasingly familiar sight around the countryside.

During 2008 sales of SP sprayers totalled 180 units equipped with booms as wide as 120ft, 6000L spray tanks and impressive 30kph operating speeds.

Last year this figure blew out to some 340 units with many carrying price tags around the $400,000 mark.

This translates into one of mechanised agriculture’s most significant sales sector, according to Brendan Deck who also highlighted the beneficial synergies that flow from parent company Nufarm which lays claim to being Australia’s largest chemical company.

Commanding about one quarter of Australia’s SP sprayer market, the talk at the Croplands launch was of further increasing market share, plus ramping up an export programme. And there was news of a yet-to-be-released range-topping trailer sprayer.

“We feel really excited about agriculture’s future moving forward,” Mr Deck said.

* Graham Fuller Travelled to SA as a guest of Croplands Equipment.