Challenge

Running a mixed cropping business with livestock means juggling multiple fields, operators, chemical products, and application timing. Managing spray records on paper or across scattered systems created inefficiencies and increased the risk of mistakes. As compliance expectations grew more rigorous, Emily needed a reliable way to record chemical use, prove her application decisions, and give customers and auditors confidence that jobs were completed safely and accurately.

Solution

Redmond Ag uses Agworld as the central system for spray planning, work orders, and application records. Their agronomist enters the chemical recommendations, and Emily converts them into jobs for the week. Operators receive clear guidance with exact instructions, and completed applications are recorded accurately with no paperwork. Agworld stores every application, weather condition, chemical rate, and operator detail in a single digital record, allowing Emily to easily supply information for compliance and customer reporting. The platform has replaced guesswork with clarity and provides a fully traceable spray diary for every field across the farm.

Result

Agworld has helped Redmond Ag lift their operational efficiency and accuracy. Spray plans are easier to organize, application errors are reduced, and every record is instantly available when required. Compliance documentation that used to take hours is now accessible in seconds, and Emily can have the confidence that all data, from chemical choices to weather conditions, is stored and auditable.

A mixed cropping and livestock business

Redmond Ag is located at Kirwee, Canterbury - just outside of Darfield - and is run by 4th generation farming siblings Scott Redmond and Emily Horck. The business grows seed and table potatoes, cereals, small seeds and a range of other rotational crops, as well as running store lambs. This requires careful planning and long-term thinking across the fields each season. Managing different crops with varied spray requirements means Emily, Scott and their team rely on clarity and structure to keep operations moving efficiently.

Prior to adopting Agworld the operation used ‘ProductionWise’ but, when this platform shut down in New Zealand, the choice was made to switch to Agworld. Emily explains the move: “I previously used Agworld for my work as a field representative at Farmlands, I enjoyed using it and knew my way around it. So, when we found out that we had to find a replacement for ProductionWise it was a natural fit for us to choose Agworld.”

Emily works closely with her agronomists, most of whom input crop protection recommendations directly into Agworld. This ensures she always starts with accurate details before turning them into jobs. Emily: “We work with a number of different agronomists that advise us on the range of crops we produce. Most of them create their recommendations directly in Agworld, which shows me exactly what we need to apply. I then turn this into a work order which the sprayrig operators go out and execute on.” For Redmond Ag this process removes uncertainty, reduces the chance of errors and makes it simple to keep a running plan of what each field needs during the season.

From Planning to Compliance

With potatoes the most important crop at Redmond Ag, Emily creates detailed pre-season plans together with her agronomist in Agworld, so they know exactly what to expect throughout the season from a budget and application perspective. “This gives us a good idea of which crop protection products we’ll need and what our cashflow projections will look like”, says Emily, “It all works seamlessly together, I just have to make sure that I keep the product prices updated so that my budgets remain accurate.”

Emily continues: “Because we have these detailed records of exactly what we do during the season, I can then use this post-season to calculate our gross margins so we know exactly what our results were and what we might be able to improve on next year.”

It’s not only the planning, spraying and budgeting however that is critical to Redmond Ag’s operation; being able to show exactly what they’ve done from a compliance perspective is just as important. Says Emily: “Whether it’s the MPI (Ministry for Primary Industries), NZGAP or Seed Potato Certification Authority that need records, they all want the same thing: a structured and detailed overview of exactly how we grew our potatoes, the crop protection products we used, etc. With Agworld’s standard ‘Field Performance’ report, compliance reports are easy for us to produce for anyone who needs it.”

Emily continues: “I couldn’t imagine not having a system like Agworld to help us keep track of all of this; it would be very hard and I don’t think I’d trust pen and paper in combination with our memory for this. Agworld saves us a lot of time with all these pieces of admin and makes our life a lot easier.

Support is key

With Scott, Emily and their mother all using Agworld for part of their tasks, everyone having access to the exact same data has become easy according to Emily: “I tend to use Agworld mostly on the computer for planning, creating actuals, budgeting etc., and mum as well when she does her finance-related tasks. Scott on the other hand uses Agworld more in the field instead of in the office and so the majority of what he does there is on his phone. But we all have access to the same data and so Scott can see exactly what we need to do on any given day so he can divide the tasks across the team, and mum can see exactly what applications we’ve done and enter some costs that will help me with budgeting and creating gross margin overviews. Agworld helps us cut out a lot of unnecessary communication and makes sure we’re all on the same page.”

As is the case with any product or service used within the agricultural industry, service is key when using farm management software like Agworld says Emily: “The Agworld support team is fantastic. I don’t have to hesitate and can ask them any question I might have and they’ll steer me in the right direction pretty quickly, they’re very helpful. This is definitely key for any software you use on a farm!”