Fertiliser spreading contractors use state-of-the-art technology

• Published date: 31 August 2022
• Publication title: Central Rural Life

That hasn’t stopped him from learning or becoming a technology leader in his field

He doesn’t rate himself as ‘‘book-smart’’, but does accept that his strong suit is persevering with a project to make it happen.

‘‘I left school when I just turned 15 and Mum got a dispensation for me to leave and I was out of there. I hated the place, absolutely hated it. I did a small motor course I had to do for leaving school, just a YMCA course. It had to be some sort of learning so I did that to get my ticket out of there.’’

Today, he runs a variable rate fertiliser spreading company with his wife, Anna, and parents Alan ‘‘Dusty’’and Alison Jackson.

The family business, Jackson Spreading, started in 2013 when Jackson senior took a leap of faith after driving trucks for nearly 50 years.

Longstanding relationships meant he had a lot of farmers supporting him when he went out by himself.

The agreement was that Jon and Anna would buy into the business 50:50 when he got busy.

Six months later and another truck and set of hands was needed and the business of two became a partnership of four.

They still have a photo hanging on the office wall of the first Nissan truck and trailer — which has long since been replaced by a modern fleet.

Mr Jackson says he was happy managing a run-off block, but working with his parents was too good of an opportunity to miss.

His own somewhat unconventional journey to managing a business detoured from the usual go-to-university and get a degree passage.

After leaving school early, he went dairy farming, when junior staff were paid ‘‘peanuts’’.

That put him off dairying so he switched to crop farming up the road from their Tinwald headquarters only to leave when the farmer’s son told him they were converting to dairy farming.

A shift to working for an inter-row spraying contractor was followed by a four-year stint in earthmoving, helping a mate build up a business.

Then he went back to work for the son who converted the dairy farm to run their young stock block of 1200 stock units. He was enjoying that until another change saw him working with his dad in the family business.

With hindsight, he can see that working all these different jobs helped him become a better contractor.

‘‘Everything right through from my farming background to earthmoving and understanding working with the soil has been really useful. Understanding what farmers face and we face as contractors, it’s all helped.’’

They spread variable-rate fertiliser, initially mainly superphosphate and potassium on cropping farms.

A spreading file is fed into the computer in the truck cab, which shows a paddock split into zones based on soil tests provided by farmers and their agronomists...