A.B. Annand says its ‘version 4’ Jangler will work reliably and effectively for long periods, guarding seeding crops. Growers, merchants and trial farm managers can opt to buy machines outright or lease to own over three years.
Jangler project manager Leanne Doherty says enhancements trialled in 36 machines at sites in Manawatu and Canterbury over the 2011/12 cropping season have made the Jangler more reliable and easier to operate and service.
The Jangler is a solar-powered box that jangles a long wire — up 600 metres long — with an assortment of visually and acoustically disruptive “jangly bits” hanging along its length.
When the wire is jerked these items pop up out of the crop in random order, frightening birds such that they fly off. Janglers run through the crop in parallel lines up to 600m long x 48m apart.
The device in April
2011 took the top Innovation Prize at the 2011 South Island Agricultural Field Days.
It is claimed more cost-effective than conventional netting, and more convenient, in that the wires can easily be lowered to the ground to allow irrigators or other plant to cross.
A.B. Annand operates from Osterley trial farm on 28ha near Lincoln and contracts hundreds of hectares of vegetable seed production with farmers in Canterbury and Oregon, USA. All but a tiny fraction of this production is exported. Annand Company has customers in at least 20 countries.
A brief video shows the Jangler in action.
www.thejangler.co.nz
