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A LOVE of the outdoors led Mark Lavery to contracting his services as a sprayer.
With just one spray unit, he was soon sought after as the go-to man for weed control requirements.
That was back in 1994; these days, Mark and his wife Sally own three businesses; Mark's Spray Barn, Mark's Agricultural Services and Mark's Environmental Services.
In 2007, Mark and Sally opened their shop, Mark's Spray Barn, now at 64 Catherine Street, Lavington.
"We opened the shop due to us not being able to receive parts ourselves in a timely manner," Sally said.
"Spraying is time sensitive, and we could lose a week waiting for a part that may only cost us a couple of dollars.
"Being contractors, we understand this for our clients and we only specialise in what we know and that is sprayers. Our knowledge base is not spread over all agricultural machinery."
Mark's Agricultural Services and Mark's Environmental Services are spray contracting businesses with extensive experience, knowledge and equipment for all your weed control requirements.
Specialist equipment enables the experienced team to handle any situation, from the smallest hobby farm to a large national park.
A large fleet of vehicles cater for all broad acre on-farm requirements while environmental weeds in highly sensitive areas are a speciality.
Mark uses special chemicals that don't harm the environment and can hand remove weeds.
Mark and the team also revegetate plantings to help the environment.
For larger spraying jobs, Mark relies on boom spraying.
These booms are 18 metres wide and equipped with air injected nozzles to help stop chemical drift.
All Mark's equipment is designed to either eliminate or minimise spray drift.
Today Mark employs more than 20 staff between the three businesses at peak season.
The team travels 30,000 kilometres spraying roadsides every year in a bid to improve road safety.
"One of the best part of this job is the places we go and see," Mark said from his latest job in Walgett, NSW.
"We see some magnificent national parks and meet lots of great people along the way."
Indeed, it was the expanding business that saw Mark and the team make the move to larger premises, "double the size and three times the yard space", Mark says.
"The rain has meant we are busier than ever, which is a good thing."
For more information, visit marksspraybarn.com.au.
With farmer confidence high and cattle and land prices at record numbers, for many farmers it is the right time to start putting back into their land.
Aerial pasture regeneration is a great option and is easier than you might think.\
The team at Rotor Solutions offer a one-stop-shop for pasture regeneration and will ensure it's done right the first time.
Aerial wipe-out sprays, followed by aerial seeding and fertiliser application allow for a fuss-free and time-efficient method of application.
State-of-the-art-equipment and expert piloting are the key to exceptional results and Rotor Solutions proudly offers both.
Their Helispread Superlight buckets, used for fertiliser and seeding, offer the most uniform, accurate and precise coverage from the air. With rates available from 12kg to 500kg per hectare, there is a solution to every requirement.
Utilising their aircraft Tracmap Aviation GPS systems and its cloud-based mapping platform, the farmer can map out or upload from their own programme, the areas of application required.
The pilot then uses these maps to spray or spread from ensuring accurate coverage in the required areas.
At the end of the job, the maps are sent back to the cloud where the farmer can access the map.
Many farmers use these maps again in following years or to pass onto and share with ground contractors to minimise double up of application.
The season is shaping up to be one similar to 2021, with plenty of water under foot so far and more forecast each week.
This year, Rotor Solutions have four helicopters in service to meet demand and to help manage the ever-challenging and ever-changing weather conditions.
The team at Rotor Solutions are busy with early crop spraying, aerial wheat and barley seeding, fertiliser spreading, as well as the early broadleaf spraying.
Unfortunately for farmers, rain brings weeds, but as is known, good competition is better than no competition.
Giving back to the land and creating healthy pastures able to fight the emergence of weeds is all in a day's work for the helicopter.
HARDI Australia is a proudly South Australian business making world-class ag sprayers for Australian farmers.
They are a subsidiary of global sprayer specialist HARDI International, giving them access to leading sprayer innovations and expertise.
"A comprehensive product range including self-propelled, Trailed, Linkage, Mistblowers, ATV, UTV and hand-operated sprayers is backed by HARDI quality parts and service," HARDI Australia chief executive Bill Franklin said. HARDI Australia products are used in dry land broad-acre, row crop, dairy, horticulture, orchards, vineyards, hobby and home garden.
Most of the HARDI sprayers sold in Australia and New Zealand are built at the Adelaide factory, which employs more than 100 people and uses more than 150 local suppliers.
The business is 10 kilometres from the Adelaide CBD, situated on a 10 hectare site with 16,000 square metres of up-to-date factory buildings provide for engineering, manufacturing, powder coating, assembly, testing, parts warehousing, distribution and administration.
From here, 105 employees support a network of more than 250 dealers throughout Australia.
Marks Spray Barn also operate a fleet of spray units for roadside spraying or slashing, fertiliser spreading and weed controls in parks, gardens and sports grounds.