Designed and manufactured in New Zealand, the range of Tow and Fert machines are primarily designed as liquid foliar spray machines.

The machines have the ability to dissolve any nitrogen-based fertiliser (primarily urea), into a plant-available liquid solution.

Making its Ploughing debut this week, Peter Thomas Keaveney chats with Leslie Dwyer of FuturAg, who talks around the design of the range and explains how they work.

Although the first few units arrived in Ireland at the end of 2016, it's only in the past 12 months that is has begun to take off in Ireland and the UK, with the manufacturer putting this down to the high fertiliser costs.

Who are Tow and Fert?

Tow and Fert is designed and built by Metalform. Based in the central North Island town of Dannevirke in New Zealand, the Tow and Fert concept was initially started in 2009.

The company employs in the region of 100 people and has machines working across New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the UK and the USA.

How does it work?

Built into the sprayer's tank is a hydraulically powered belt-driven agitation system, which features a patented housed impeller, meaning the product will never settle out of suspension.

The unit self-fills by sucking in liquid such as fresh water from a tank, etc. The water is sucked in through a patented in-house-designed stainless-steel trash pump before passing through a large inline filter and distributed into the tank.

The range

The range is made up of five models, starting with the ATV-pulled Multi 500 - a 500l and up to 10m (32ft) working width machine - right up to the trailed PTO-driven Multi 4000, which is a 4,000l model with up to a 24m (79ft) working width.

The machines are distributed across Europe by Leslie Dwyer of APS Bioag in Co Kildare. Prices start from €10,500 and range up to €70,000 plus VAT.