Nov 02,2017 at 12:32 am By Admin - Rocks Gone
MEDIA RELEASE – GROWTH CATEGOR WINNER WA IOTY AWARDS
The Rocks Gone Reefinator has been awarded the Growth Category winner at the WA Innovator of the Year awards 2017. This award is sponsored by Mitsubishi Corporation who is a great supporter of innovation in WA, and facilitated by the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation.
Innovation is incredibly important to our society and our future relies on it. It is a slow and costly process; bringing a product to market in a volume that is profitable is challenging. It can be very difficult for new innovations to be adopted and accepted within the marketplace.
The Reefinator has been a huge success around WA, improving soil quality and capacity across the state. Around 130 machines have been sold all around Australia.
The Reefinator is a towed implement and has a grate, much like a cheese grater, that holds down the rock and rips up manageable lumps that can be crushed by the following roller. After several passes, the biggest lumps of rock you’ll find are the size of a fist.
The innovation has proven to be cost effective, as it rips up and crushes rock, improving soil quality and depth, and thus its yield potential and water retaining capacity. Farmers who once struggled with stony soil can now improve their productivity.
The Reefinator is designed to be simple, durable, and cost effective. The designated wear parts and weak points are quick and easy to replace, while the rest of the implement is tough and ready to last thousands of hours of work.
Tim Pannell, a former farmer from Yuna, invented the Reefinator. Tim began contracting with a rotary crusher but found it slow and expensive. After working on several prototypes, the Reefinator was created and tested on Western Australian farms.
Tim, and his eldest daughter Joanne, proved the worth of the Reefinator with thousands of hours of contracting across thousands of hectares in the WA Wheatbelt.
If 350,000 hectares of shallow land is converted into productive land, that alone equates to 210 million dollars of increased production per year.
The Reefinator has established itself as the leading solution for increasing profitability by turning rock into soil for farmers.
The Reefinator has been awarded the Best Australian Made Machine Award at the Yorke Peninsula Field Days in 2015 and the New Release Award in 2015 at the Newdegate Machinery Field Days.
Innovation awards honour WA's best and brightest
WA Innovator of the Year 2017 Winners