February 17, 2025 • 19 mins
Field Operations Manager, Duncan Grant, shares his decade-long journey from field technician to leading the field operations in Gisborne. Discover the strategies and challenges of coordinating contract growers to maintain seed purity and manage cross-pollination risks. Learn from Duncan's insights the dynamic planning needed to tackle logistical hurdles presented by unpredictable weather conditions to produce some of New Zealand's highest quality seed.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
G'day and welcome to Feed for Thought, a regular
podcast from Pioneer coveringeverything from farm systems to
crops and products and much,much more.
Welcome to Feed for Thought.
My name's Matt Daly and, asalways, I've got my mate, wade
Bell.
Welcome, mate G'day.
How are you Good?
Thanks Good.
Now we've actually got aspecial guest flowing in from
(00:25):
the East Coast.
A lot of people might know thatwe produce all of our seed at
Pioneer in Gisborne and we'vebrought in a man that looks
after the field operations,duncan Grant.
So, duncan, welcome to Feed forThought.
Thanks, guys, it's nice to havea bit of East Coast flavour on.
We haven't had too much fromover your side of the way
(00:46):
flavour on.
We haven't had too much fromover your side of the way.
So Dunk, before we get into thenuts and bolts around how Gizzy
operates and how we getbasically the seed to the bag or
to the plant, can you tell us alittle bit about your journey
at Pioneer You've been aroundfor a wee while.
You've experienced a fewdifferent roles and a little bit
about yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, so I started with the company in the Waikato
in 2011.
Started off as a fieldtechnician and then moved into
our small plot impact team.
So did that for 18 months.
Covered the upper North Island,so from Gizzy, where I am now,
crossed the sort of Taupo andeverything north right up to
Northland.
And then 2013, moved across toGisborne as a production
(01:29):
agronomist.
And then a few years latermoved into the field operations
manager role Kind of moved homeas well.
Yeah, close to home, Yep yepFrom Wairoa just an hour down
the road.
So back to the east coast,pretty close to my heart.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Loves a bit of fishing and hunting this man?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, just out of curiosity.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So born in Wairau, born in Hawke's Bay but grew up
in Wairau.
It's always interesting to seewhere people are born.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm born in Tokerau.
I was going to say let's nothear your history.
Yeah, and so now your role isvery much liaising with our
growers out on the flats there.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, so lead a team in Gisborne.
I've got two agronomists and aproduction planner slash
agronomist.
Myself and the team liaise withour 15 contract growers over
there to do all the seedproduction.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So all those seed fields that are pioneer produced
there's only 15 to 16 kind ofgrowers, 15 growers plus
ourselves.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
We do a small amount ourselves, just a very small
amount, but yeah, all 15 growers.
So this year we had over 200paddocks, this year, 200
individual fields, all fromthose 15 growers.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
And what's the kind of radius around Gisborne with
those growers?
How far afield are we?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Sort of all within 30 to 35km of the plant.
So we've obviously got the seaon on one side and then then the
range is sort of either side ofus and up, up to ticaracas,
which is about 20 to 30k awayit's a pretty tight yeah very
tight, yeah, yeah and soprobably a lot of competition as
well a lot of competition.
Yeah, a lot of a lot of um corn.
So that's that's predominantlywhat we worry about, obviously,
(03:00):
with seed production um.
So there's a lot of corngrowing.
There's a lot of commercialgrain from our own sales guys,
so we compete with our own salesguy in there, Simon.
Bigley every now and then.
Who wins?
Yeah me, good answer we needthe seed to sell it.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Sorry, I'll just touch on that.
Why is there an issue therewith other crops or other corn?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So when our seed corn is flowering, anything within
400 metres, if it's flowering atthe same time, can
cross-pollinate our corn.
So we then get undesirablegenetics.
So that's any other corncommercial maize, sweet corn,
popcorn, grown in Gisborne.
So any pollen at that time can….
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And other seed fields as well.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
yeah, yeah, and our own seed fields as well, yeah
plus our own stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So how do you go about managing that?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, it takes a lot of time.
There's a lot of iterations inthe plan.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, it sort of takes three or four or five goes
to go through it and then getsomebody else to look at it.
Sometimes Andrew Power, theproduction manager, or my own
team look at it and go well,that's not going to work.
So, yeah, you get a plan andthen you go out and go to plant.
When we get to planting and allof a sudden somebody's planted
some sweet corn or somecommercial maize or something
next door and it kind of throwsthe plan out.
You got to take into account, um, weather as well, so weather
(04:17):
comes into it massively as well,because you then then start
getting into um delays withgetting crops in the ground and
and I suppose you've got toprobably have communication
lines with other seed companiesas well.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yep, it's not cutthroat.
You guys are both workingtogether in that space.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah.
So we're on the shop floorpretty much doing the same thing
, so we've both got to have goodquality seed, and also with the
sweet corn guys, because theydon't want our pollen going into
the sweet corn as well.
So there's a bit of that aswell.
So, yeah, it's interesting,dynamic and forever changing, Do
you?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I'm trying to get my head around this.
You essentially lay out a map,right, and you'll have hybrids,
you know all over the show.
This is why you don't have thejob.
This is my simple mind workinghere right, and so you've got
all this happening.
Then you're trying to maneuverthat around.
You know, there's other growersin the region that are doing
their thing.
There's sweet corn growers.
There's all this stuffhappening.
(05:12):
You draw up your plan, whichmust take you forever and a day
to even just get to that point.
Then you go out into the fieldthe actual practical part and it
could be completely blown apartby the fact that something's
popped up that you weren'texpecting.
How do you re-organise yourplan?
But you must be doing thatevery day.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Because that would have been designated for a
certain hybrid, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So you've just got to adapt and change.
You can get a phone call andNow, and 10 minutes later the
plan changes again.
So you've just got to bedynamic and able to move and
adjust and don't get hung up onthings, and things don't always
go right.
So we have a process that wecan use to mitigate if we do
have problems that come up atflowering time.
(05:59):
So we can do crop destructionand we can do things to mitigate
that and harvest half of apaddock and isolate that within
our system, within our dryers.
So then we get the qualityresults back on those.
We do individual testing.
If we've split a paddock inhalf so we can say, well, half
the paddock's fine because it'sgot a distant isolation, and the
other half, generally it comesback okay because we're
(06:19):
over-cautious, obviously.
So, yeah, we just do testingwhich goes through the whole
process as well, which from wehave our quality team that come
in through every single part ofour process as well to keep an
eye on us, pretty much.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
So let's say we're up to planting now, generally the
October period, nothing earlier.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
No.
So with parent seed we arecrossing two unrelated inbreds
together.
So we're not growing hybrid,which a lot of our customers
will be used to.
So they don't have the hybridvigour and all that sort of
stuff like our hybrids do thatwe're selling.
So we kind of need higher soiltemperatures and stuff than what
you would if you were plantinghybrid corn.
(06:59):
So we're typically aroundmid-October planting through to
early to mid-December is ourplanting window.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So you're talking about parent seed, you're
planting male.
Male and female, female right.
Do you want to just explainthat, because there's probably a
lot of listeners that aren'tfamiliar with?
Yeah, so we.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Do you?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
want the birds and the bees talking.
I've never had this.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
This is the first one , Don't get too confused.
But here you go, Doug.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, so we plant male and female plants in a
configuration of four rows offemale plants to one row of male
plant, and those male andfemale designations are done by
the plant breeders.
So, po937, for example, thefemale could be used in another
hybrid or the male could be usedfor another hybrid as well.
So obviously, crossing themagainst another male or female
(07:46):
will give you a different result.
So yeah, they're designated,designated from the breeders,
which have told us what they are, and they also aren't
necessarily planted at the sametime.
So we have we have delays aswell because the maturities are
different on them.
So we can plant up to eightdays before, so the male can go
in up to eight days before thefemale or vice versa.
(08:07):
The female can go in up to eightdays before the female, or vice
versa.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
The female can go in up to eight days before the male
Hold on.
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So typically we use our growers use four-row
planters because it's easy forfour-row, and then we have
specially designed and builtmale planters.
So some of our growers havetheir own male planters which
they've built over the years,and we also have our own planter
(08:33):
which we we contract out to thethe smaller guys that don't
have the ability to have theirown planters.
So that's effectively a six rowplanter with the four boxes in
the middle removed.
Yeah, so it just plants.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
The plants the male and the other side of the female
.
Yeah, and so that's, that's allin aid of the cross that we're
going to end up with, and thenthe cob will be taken from the
female.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
From the female.
Yeah, so we remove the flower,which is a male part of the
plant, and the cob is the femalepart of the plant.
So we remove the male tassel ofthe plant, which then turns it
into a female, effectively, andwe don't touch the male tassel
of the plant, which then turnsit into a female effectively,
and we don't touch the male atall.
So the male then produces thepollen and pollinates the female
(09:12):
.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
And then you're removing the males, yeah 15 days
after flowering.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So in a typical commercial sense, when you talk
about flowering or tasseling orany stage, it's 50% of the field
.
With us it's 5% of the fieldbecause when 5% of the field is
flowering or silking, for usit's susceptible to any pollen,
so we start then having to worryabout any other pollen being
(09:39):
around.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So, whether that's from like we talked about the
sweet corn or the commercialmaize or the popcorn, so getting
that timing right of that malepollen dropping on those silks
at the right time is very key,especially if you're only
working that 5%, 100%, wow yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So, yeah, we have to get that right at planting,
obviously, and then 65 to 75days later when they're actually
flowering, depending onmaturity, obviously is a long
time.
So if you get it wrong at thefront end with your planting
delays and things like that, youdon't get anything at the other
end because you don't have thepollen and the silks at the same
time.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
There's a few that are going on here.
I can see your eyes rolling.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Wade this is a terrible birds and bees chat.
I was expecting something waybetter.
Calm down mate.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
But there is a time of year, so that detasseling
well, the tassel's got to comeout right and that's the
tasseling process.
It's generally when I've beendriving past on my way to Tolaga
Bay for New Year's Everyone'sworking underneath and you're on
holiday.
Yeah, it's my time to have abreak, but there's a lot of
people in the fields out there.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
So can you tell us a little bit about the, the
detasseling process?
Good, yeah, so detasseling.
Detasseling covers um, the, thephysical removal of the flower,
like we talked about.
Um, also we have roging thatcomes in that.
So roging starts typicallyaround mid-december, where we
employ sort of 20 to 30 casualstaff and use our staff that
come out of the factory whenthey've finished all their seed
treatment and dispatch of theseed, so they come out into the
field as well, and that roguingprocess is removing any off-type
(11:16):
plants that are in the field,either from seed from the
previous year or crop from theprevious year or any seed that's
got through the process.
One or two seeds might havecome through the treeder, know,
might have come through the treeto raw.
Something might have comethrough, even when we're talking
about 1% outcrossing out, sooutcross having 1% of other
(11:36):
seeds potentially in there.
You know we're planting at96,000 seeds to the hectare so
that's 960 plants to the hectarethat you've got to remove out,
because you don't want thosegenetics into the hybrid that
we're trying to remove out,because you don't want those
genetics into the hybrid thatwe're trying to produce.
True, yeah, so you say itstarts mid-december and then,
depending on the season anddepending how well my planning
went before we started planting,is dependent on when we start
(11:58):
the tasseling.
Yeah, also the season,obviously, and that typically
starts, hopefully, in the newyear, but can start just after
christmas or even just beforeChristmas.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I must be having a long holiday.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So we have started before Christmas before, but
typically I try and plan sowe're starting fresh into the
new year, and that involvesanywhere from 150 to 180 staff,
casual and permanent staff.
So we have 40 permanent staffworking in Gisborne and they all
come into the fields oversummer, so it's pretty cool for
our permanent staff.
So we have we have 40 permanentstaff working in gizmon and
they all come into the fieldsover summer.
So it's pretty cool for our ourpermanent staff as well,
(12:31):
because they get to do a wholelot of different stuff, not just
stuck in the factory driving aforklift, so the detasseling is
on the females.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah correct, yeah so , and you've got, uh, a mix of
machinery and sort of manualyeah.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So we have mechanical detasseling which goes through
and only takes out up to sort of90% of the tassels, 80% to 90%,
especially with a new bit ofkit we bought in from the US.
Massive increase inefficiencies with that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
And then we put the staff through two times after
that.
So we do three passes through apaddock once with a mechanical
detasseler and then twice withfield crews, and they're in
crews of 14 people.
So we've got personnel carrierswhich carry 14.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
This is not a military thing.
Well, it is a bit like amilitary operation, yeah true,
14 people on the machine.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
You've got a driver and a quality control person and
then 12 pickers, and typicallya picker will pick on average
between 250 and 300,000 tasselsfor the season.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Holy heck.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So they're working eight hours a day for six weeks.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
In the gizzy sun as well, while you're on holiday.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
About six weeks.
Okay, we'll park that.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
About six weeks.
Okay, we'll park that.
So when I come back from aholiday and We've finished DTAS,
the next part is when we comeinto harvest.
That's the next big part.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, so sort of the end of DTAS into harvest.
We're also then going throughthe male removal process because
we don't need any of thosegenetics, or we don't want any
of those genetics becausethey've self-pollinated
themselves through the process.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So we go through and remove those, so we cut them off
at ground level and they justlie in the paddock.
We don't need them anymore.
And then we move into harvestonce the crops are ready, once
we determine the harvestmoisture, which is a lot higher
than commercial grain harvest.
So we're anywhere from 30% to38% moisture, kernel moisture.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Right, okay, so because we're normally aiming in
early 20s maybe, and a bitlower for our commercial grain.
So she's soft.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, soft, and we can dry it nice and slow and
there's obviously no risk.
So the drier it gets in thefield, the more risk we have
with our seed being in the field.
Okay, so the earlier we can getit off and not damage it during
the drying process, the better.
So I mean if we could harvestat 60% moisture, it would be
better because the risk of itbeing in the field.
(15:01):
But obviously we can't do that.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And you're taking the whole year.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yes, we use corn air pickers, which are also used for
sweet corn harvesting, so thattakes the whole air off.
The plant, leaves everythingelse in the field and then that
gets taken into the factory.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, and then there's a whole process that
gets into gear.
Which?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
is going to be a bloody good podcast to follow.
I think we might find one ofthe other team, but that gear,
part of it, and the harvest.
Are you doing it all yourself,or are there other contractors
involved as well, because thatwould be a logistical nightmare
too.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So the planting from, we'll go back talking about
machinery, go right back toplanting.
So we have those 15 contractgrowers.
They all have their own gear.
So they lease or own thepaddocks themselves.
They work the ground, plant theground themselves under our
direction and do all thespraying and everything
themselves.
So that's all done by them.
And then we move into DTAS andwe provide all the spraying and
(15:58):
everything themselves.
So that's all done by them.
And then we move into DTAS andwe provide all the gear for
DTASling.
So we've got the mechanicalDTASers.
We own those.
The personnel carriers Also.
When you've got 150 to 180staff in the field, they all
need to use the bathroom, soyou've got to have portaloos and
all that sort of stuff aroundas well.
So we've got a dedicated staffmember that does that deploying
and cleaning and all that sortof stuff at Portaloos.
So yeah, take my hat off to him.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Could be a job for you on the holidays.
Okay, there's enough of thatshit, Jack.
We just left the door open Onthat shit note.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Let's wrap this because I think there's been a
couple of you want one last word, One final question.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So pretty much, what's the period of time from
when harvest kind of starts tofinish?
And then what's your role?
Do you just start hooking backinto planning again for the
following season, like wheredoes it end for you?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, so that detest goes through to mid-Feb sort of
normally, and then we go intoharvesting, sort of end of Feb,
early March, and that typicallygoes for eight weeks, depending
on what the sales team have saidto us, how much seed they want,
and then at the end of harvestmy team go back into the full
planning mode.
(17:14):
So we're then going in for thenext spring, doing the demand,
getting the demand plan from thesales team and going full
circle back in and looking atall our parent seed stocks that
we need for the following year.
Well, we're actually lookingtwo to three years out for those
for our parent stocks, becauseobviously we have to also grow
parent seed and import parentseed where we've got small
volumes.
(17:35):
Yeah right, so we do all thatourselves through that whole
planting and DTAS part as well.
We're growing parent seed forthe following season as well.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Following seasons, there's a fair bit going on
anyway, yeah, and then we alsothrow another thing in there.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
We also have the export market.
So we do contract growing forCorteva, for Pioneer up in the
US, for the Japan and Koreamarkets as well.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So it throws a whole other, and so same hybrids or
different hybrids.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
There are a couple of hybrids we also export to
Australia, to our sister companyin Aussie as well.
So do a bit of production forthem where there's a few hybrids
that do cross over.
But yeah, I think we had thisseason with the 200 fields we
had.
We had 75 different products.
We grew Wow.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, season, with the 200 fields we had, we had 75
different products we grew.
Oh so, wow, yeah, a few skewsfor you to deal with absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
If it wasn't easy, everyone would be doing it.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Hey, dude right mate sounds like matt gets a holiday.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Dunk doesn't so when I'm going past on my way to my
holiday, I'm gonna have a lotmore appreciation after this
podcast, so thanks and thanks,dunk, and thanks for coming on
because, um, I think it's givengreat detail as to what actually
goes on in those seedproduction fields.
Um, up in guzzy, huge amount offocus into quality obviously
coming through and and way tolearn about the birds and the
(18:48):
bees so so educational for all.
Um, if you enjoyed today, likeand subscribe.
It's always good to hear yourfeedback too, so so get in touch
, dunk once again.
Thanks, mate and Wade.
Thank you for joining us aswell, Cheers mate, talk to you
again soon.
Cheers Thanks.
G'day and welcome to Feed for Thought, a regular
podcast from Pioneer coveringeverything from farm systems to
crops and products and much,much more.
Welcome to Feed for Thought.
My name's Matt Daly and, asalways, I've got my mate, wade
Bell.
Welcome, mate G'day.
How are you Good?
Thanks Good.
Now we've actually got aspecial guest flowing in from
(00:25):
the East Coast.
A lot of people might know thatwe produce all of our seed at
Pioneer in Gisborne and we'vebrought in a man that looks
after the field operations,duncan Grant.
So, duncan, welcome to Feed forThought.
Thanks, guys, it's nice to havea bit of East Coast flavour on.
We haven't had too much fromover your side of the way
(00:46):
flavour on.
We haven't had too much fromover your side of the way.
So Dunk, before we get into thenuts and bolts around how Gizzy
operates and how we getbasically the seed to the bag or
to the plant, can you tell us alittle bit about your journey
at Pioneer You've been aroundfor a wee while.
You've experienced a fewdifferent roles and a little bit
about yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, so I started with the company in the Waikato
in 2011.
Started off as a fieldtechnician and then moved into
our small plot impact team.
So did that for 18 months.
Covered the upper North Island,so from Gizzy, where I am now,
crossed the sort of Taupo andeverything north right up to
Northland.
And then 2013, moved across toGisborne as a production
(01:29):
agronomist.
And then a few years latermoved into the field operations
manager role Kind of moved homeas well.
Yeah, close to home, Yep yepFrom Wairoa just an hour down
the road.
So back to the east coast,pretty close to my heart.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Loves a bit of fishing and hunting this man?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, just out of curiosity.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So born in Wairau, born in Hawke's Bay but grew up
in Wairau.
It's always interesting to seewhere people are born.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm born in Tokerau.
I was going to say let's nothear your history.
Yeah, and so now your role isvery much liaising with our
growers out on the flats there.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, so lead a team in Gisborne.
I've got two agronomists and aproduction planner slash
agronomist.
Myself and the team liaise withour 15 contract growers over
there to do all the seedproduction.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So all those seed fields that are pioneer produced
there's only 15 to 16 kind ofgrowers, 15 growers plus
ourselves.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
We do a small amount ourselves, just a very small
amount, but yeah, all 15 growers.
So this year we had over 200paddocks, this year, 200
individual fields, all fromthose 15 growers.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
And what's the kind of radius around Gisborne with
those growers?
How far afield are we?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Sort of all within 30 to 35km of the plant.
So we've obviously got the seaon on one side and then then the
range is sort of either side ofus and up, up to ticaracas,
which is about 20 to 30k awayit's a pretty tight yeah very
tight, yeah, yeah and soprobably a lot of competition as
well a lot of competition.
Yeah, a lot of a lot of um corn.
So that's that's predominantlywhat we worry about, obviously,
(03:00):
with seed production um.
So there's a lot of corngrowing.
There's a lot of commercialgrain from our own sales guys,
so we compete with our own salesguy in there, Simon.
Bigley every now and then.
Who wins?
Yeah me, good answer we needthe seed to sell it.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Sorry, I'll just touch on that.
Why is there an issue therewith other crops or other corn?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So when our seed corn is flowering, anything within
400 metres, if it's flowering atthe same time, can
cross-pollinate our corn.
So we then get undesirablegenetics.
So that's any other corncommercial maize, sweet corn,
popcorn, grown in Gisborne.
So any pollen at that time can….
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And other seed fields as well.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
yeah, yeah, and our own seed fields as well, yeah
plus our own stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So how do you go about managing that?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, it takes a lot of time.
There's a lot of iterations inthe plan.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, it sort of takes three or four or five goes
to go through it and then getsomebody else to look at it.
Sometimes Andrew Power, theproduction manager, or my own
team look at it and go well,that's not going to work.
So, yeah, you get a plan andthen you go out and go to plant.
When we get to planting and allof a sudden somebody's planted
some sweet corn or somecommercial maize or something
next door and it kind of throwsthe plan out.
You got to take into account, um, weather as well, so weather
(04:17):
comes into it massively as well,because you then then start
getting into um delays withgetting crops in the ground and
and I suppose you've got toprobably have communication
lines with other seed companiesas well.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yep, it's not cutthroat.
You guys are both workingtogether in that space.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah.
So we're on the shop floorpretty much doing the same thing
, so we've both got to have goodquality seed, and also with the
sweet corn guys, because theydon't want our pollen going into
the sweet corn as well.
So there's a bit of that aswell.
So, yeah, it's interesting,dynamic and forever changing, Do
you?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I'm trying to get my head around this.
You essentially lay out a map,right, and you'll have hybrids,
you know all over the show.
This is why you don't have thejob.
This is my simple mind workinghere right, and so you've got
all this happening.
Then you're trying to maneuverthat around.
You know, there's other growersin the region that are doing
their thing.
There's sweet corn growers.
There's all this stuffhappening.
(05:12):
You draw up your plan, whichmust take you forever and a day
to even just get to that point.
Then you go out into the fieldthe actual practical part and it
could be completely blown apartby the fact that something's
popped up that you weren'texpecting.
How do you re-organise yourplan?
But you must be doing thatevery day.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Because that would have been designated for a
certain hybrid, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So you've just got to adapt and change.
You can get a phone call andNow, and 10 minutes later the
plan changes again.
So you've just got to bedynamic and able to move and
adjust and don't get hung up onthings, and things don't always
go right.
So we have a process that wecan use to mitigate if we do
have problems that come up atflowering time.
(05:59):
So we can do crop destructionand we can do things to mitigate
that and harvest half of apaddock and isolate that within
our system, within our dryers.
So then we get the qualityresults back on those.
We do individual testing.
If we've split a paddock inhalf so we can say, well, half
the paddock's fine because it'sgot a distant isolation, and the
other half, generally it comesback okay because we're
(06:19):
over-cautious, obviously.
So, yeah, we just do testingwhich goes through the whole
process as well, which from wehave our quality team that come
in through every single part ofour process as well to keep an
eye on us, pretty much.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
So let's say we're up to planting now, generally the
October period, nothing earlier.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
No.
So with parent seed we arecrossing two unrelated inbreds
together.
So we're not growing hybrid,which a lot of our customers
will be used to.
So they don't have the hybridvigour and all that sort of
stuff like our hybrids do thatwe're selling.
So we kind of need higher soiltemperatures and stuff than what
you would if you were plantinghybrid corn.
(06:59):
So we're typically aroundmid-October planting through to
early to mid-December is ourplanting window.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So you're talking about parent seed, you're
planting male.
Male and female, female right.
Do you want to just explainthat, because there's probably a
lot of listeners that aren'tfamiliar with?
Yeah, so we.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Do you?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
want the birds and the bees talking.
I've never had this.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
This is the first one , Don't get too confused.
But here you go, Doug.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, so we plant male and female plants in a
configuration of four rows offemale plants to one row of male
plant, and those male andfemale designations are done by
the plant breeders.
So, po937, for example, thefemale could be used in another
hybrid or the male could be usedfor another hybrid as well.
So obviously, crossing themagainst another male or female
(07:46):
will give you a different result.
So yeah, they're designated,designated from the breeders,
which have told us what they are, and they also aren't
necessarily planted at the sametime.
So we have we have delays aswell because the maturities are
different on them.
So we can plant up to eightdays before, so the male can go
in up to eight days before thefemale or vice versa.
(08:07):
The female can go in up to eightdays before the female, or vice
versa.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
The female can go in up to eight days before the male
Hold on.
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So typically we use our growers use four-row
planters because it's easy forfour-row, and then we have
specially designed and builtmale planters.
So some of our growers havetheir own male planters which
they've built over the years,and we also have our own planter
(08:33):
which we we contract out to thethe smaller guys that don't
have the ability to have theirown planters.
So that's effectively a six rowplanter with the four boxes in
the middle removed.
Yeah, so it just plants.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
The plants the male and the other side of the female
.
Yeah, and so that's, that's allin aid of the cross that we're
going to end up with, and thenthe cob will be taken from the
female.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
From the female.
Yeah, so we remove the flower,which is a male part of the
plant, and the cob is the femalepart of the plant.
So we remove the male tassel ofthe plant, which then turns it
into a female, effectively, andwe don't touch the male tassel
of the plant, which then turnsit into a female effectively,
and we don't touch the male atall.
So the male then produces thepollen and pollinates the female
(09:12):
.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
And then you're removing the males, yeah 15 days
after flowering.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So in a typical commercial sense, when you talk
about flowering or tasseling orany stage, it's 50% of the field
.
With us it's 5% of the fieldbecause when 5% of the field is
flowering or silking, for usit's susceptible to any pollen,
so we start then having to worryabout any other pollen being
(09:39):
around.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So, whether that's from like we talked about the
sweet corn or the commercialmaize or the popcorn, so getting
that timing right of that malepollen dropping on those silks
at the right time is very key,especially if you're only
working that 5%, 100%, wow yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So, yeah, we have to get that right at planting,
obviously, and then 65 to 75days later when they're actually
flowering, depending onmaturity, obviously is a long
time.
So if you get it wrong at thefront end with your planting
delays and things like that, youdon't get anything at the other
end because you don't have thepollen and the silks at the same
time.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
There's a few that are going on here.
I can see your eyes rolling.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Wade this is a terrible birds and bees chat.
I was expecting something waybetter.
Calm down mate.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
But there is a time of year, so that detasseling
well, the tassel's got to comeout right and that's the
tasseling process.
It's generally when I've beendriving past on my way to Tolaga
Bay for New Year's Everyone'sworking underneath and you're on
holiday.
Yeah, it's my time to have abreak, but there's a lot of
people in the fields out there.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
So can you tell us a little bit about the, the
detasseling process?
Good, yeah, so detasseling.
Detasseling covers um, the, thephysical removal of the flower,
like we talked about.
Um, also we have roging thatcomes in that.
So roging starts typicallyaround mid-december, where we
employ sort of 20 to 30 casualstaff and use our staff that
come out of the factory whenthey've finished all their seed
treatment and dispatch of theseed, so they come out into the
field as well, and that roguingprocess is removing any off-type
(11:16):
plants that are in the field,either from seed from the
previous year or crop from theprevious year or any seed that's
got through the process.
One or two seeds might havecome through the treeder, know,
might have come through the treeto raw.
Something might have comethrough, even when we're talking
about 1% outcrossing out, sooutcross having 1% of other
(11:36):
seeds potentially in there.
You know we're planting at96,000 seeds to the hectare so
that's 960 plants to the hectarethat you've got to remove out,
because you don't want thosegenetics into the hybrid that
we're trying to remove out,because you don't want those
genetics into the hybrid thatwe're trying to produce.
True, yeah, so you say itstarts mid-december and then,
depending on the season anddepending how well my planning
went before we started planting,is dependent on when we start
(11:58):
the tasseling.
Yeah, also the season,obviously, and that typically
starts, hopefully, in the newyear, but can start just after
christmas or even just beforeChristmas.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I must be having a long holiday.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So we have started before Christmas before, but
typically I try and plan sowe're starting fresh into the
new year, and that involvesanywhere from 150 to 180 staff,
casual and permanent staff.
So we have 40 permanent staffworking in Gisborne and they all
come into the fields oversummer, so it's pretty cool for
our permanent staff.
So we have we have 40 permanentstaff working in gizmon and
they all come into the fieldsover summer.
So it's pretty cool for our ourpermanent staff as well,
(12:31):
because they get to do a wholelot of different stuff, not just
stuck in the factory driving aforklift, so the detasseling is
on the females.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah correct, yeah so , and you've got, uh, a mix of
machinery and sort of manualyeah.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So we have mechanical detasseling which goes through
and only takes out up to sort of90% of the tassels, 80% to 90%,
especially with a new bit ofkit we bought in from the US.
Massive increase inefficiencies with that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
And then we put the staff through two times after
that.
So we do three passes through apaddock once with a mechanical
detasseler and then twice withfield crews, and they're in
crews of 14 people.
So we've got personnel carrierswhich carry 14.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
This is not a military thing.
Well, it is a bit like amilitary operation, yeah true,
14 people on the machine.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
You've got a driver and a quality control person and
then 12 pickers, and typicallya picker will pick on average
between 250 and 300,000 tasselsfor the season.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Holy heck.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So they're working eight hours a day for six weeks.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
In the gizzy sun as well, while you're on holiday.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
About six weeks.
Okay, we'll park that.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
About six weeks.
Okay, we'll park that.
So when I come back from aholiday and We've finished DTAS,
the next part is when we comeinto harvest.
That's the next big part.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, so sort of the end of DTAS into harvest.
We're also then going throughthe male removal process because
we don't need any of thosegenetics, or we don't want any
of those genetics becausethey've self-pollinated
themselves through the process.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So we go through and remove those, so we cut them off
at ground level and they justlie in the paddock.
We don't need them anymore.
And then we move into harvestonce the crops are ready, once
we determine the harvestmoisture, which is a lot higher
than commercial grain harvest.
So we're anywhere from 30% to38% moisture, kernel moisture.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Right, okay, so because we're normally aiming in
early 20s maybe, and a bitlower for our commercial grain.
So she's soft.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, soft, and we can dry it nice and slow and
there's obviously no risk.
So the drier it gets in thefield, the more risk we have
with our seed being in the field.
Okay, so the earlier we can getit off and not damage it during
the drying process, the better.
So I mean if we could harvestat 60% moisture, it would be
better because the risk of itbeing in the field.
(15:01):
But obviously we can't do that.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And you're taking the whole year.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yes, we use corn air pickers, which are also used for
sweet corn harvesting, so thattakes the whole air off.
The plant, leaves everythingelse in the field and then that
gets taken into the factory.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, and then there's a whole process that
gets into gear.
Which?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
is going to be a bloody good podcast to follow.
I think we might find one ofthe other team, but that gear,
part of it, and the harvest.
Are you doing it all yourself,or are there other contractors
involved as well, because thatwould be a logistical nightmare
too.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So the planting from, we'll go back talking about
machinery, go right back toplanting.
So we have those 15 contractgrowers.
They all have their own gear.
So they lease or own thepaddocks themselves.
They work the ground, plant theground themselves under our
direction and do all thespraying and everything
themselves.
So that's all done by them.
And then we move into DTAS andwe provide all the spraying and
(15:58):
everything themselves.
So that's all done by them.
And then we move into DTAS andwe provide all the gear for
DTASling.
So we've got the mechanicalDTASers.
We own those.
The personnel carriers Also.
When you've got 150 to 180staff in the field, they all
need to use the bathroom, soyou've got to have portaloos and
all that sort of stuff aroundas well.
So we've got a dedicated staffmember that does that deploying
and cleaning and all that sortof stuff at Portaloos.
So yeah, take my hat off to him.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Could be a job for you on the holidays.
Okay, there's enough of thatshit, Jack.
We just left the door open Onthat shit note.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Let's wrap this because I think there's been a
couple of you want one last word, One final question.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So pretty much, what's the period of time from
when harvest kind of starts tofinish?
And then what's your role?
Do you just start hooking backinto planning again for the
following season, like wheredoes it end for you?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, so that detest goes through to mid-Feb sort of
normally, and then we go intoharvesting, sort of end of Feb,
early March, and that typicallygoes for eight weeks, depending
on what the sales team have saidto us, how much seed they want,
and then at the end of harvestmy team go back into the full
planning mode.
(17:14):
So we're then going in for thenext spring, doing the demand,
getting the demand plan from thesales team and going full
circle back in and looking atall our parent seed stocks that
we need for the following year.
Well, we're actually lookingtwo to three years out for those
for our parent stocks, becauseobviously we have to also grow
parent seed and import parentseed where we've got small
volumes.
(17:35):
Yeah right, so we do all thatourselves through that whole
planting and DTAS part as well.
We're growing parent seed forthe following season as well.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Following seasons, there's a fair bit going on
anyway, yeah, and then we alsothrow another thing in there.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
We also have the export market.
So we do contract growing forCorteva, for Pioneer up in the
US, for the Japan and Koreamarkets as well.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So it throws a whole other, and so same hybrids or
different hybrids.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
There are a couple of hybrids we also export to
Australia, to our sister companyin Aussie as well.
So do a bit of production forthem where there's a few hybrids
that do cross over.
But yeah, I think we had thisseason with the 200 fields we
had.
We had 75 different products.
We grew Wow.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, season, with the 200 fields we had, we had 75
different products we grew.
Oh so, wow, yeah, a few skewsfor you to deal with absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
If it wasn't easy, everyone would be doing it.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Hey, dude right mate sounds like matt gets a holiday.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Dunk doesn't so when I'm going past on my way to my
holiday, I'm gonna have a lotmore appreciation after this
podcast, so thanks and thanks,dunk, and thanks for coming on
because, um, I think it's givengreat detail as to what actually
goes on in those seedproduction fields.
Um, up in guzzy, huge amount offocus into quality obviously
coming through and and way tolearn about the birds and the
(18:48):
bees so so educational for all.
Um, if you enjoyed today, likeand subscribe.
It's always good to hear yourfeedback too, so so get in touch
, dunk once again.
Thanks, mate and Wade.
Thank you for joining us aswell, Cheers mate, talk to you
again soon.
Cheers Thanks.
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