Growing with Precision: Western Bay Spraying

Five years ago, Western Bay Spraying started with one machine.

Today, there are five.

Based in Katikati, the business specialises in kiwifruit spraying across the Western Bay of Plenty, working across conventional and organic orchards from Te Puna through to Waihi. Canopy spraying remains at the heart of the operation, alongside shelterbelt and ground spraying and other orchard contracting work.

Tabula — then TracMap — came on board not long after that first machine.

As Western Bay Spraying has grown, the technology supporting the operation has grown with it.

“We saw the value early on and we were improving things within our operation,” says Paul Wiebes, owner and operator at Western Bay Spraying.

What began as a straightforward way to track machines and provide reliable spray records has become part of how the team coordinates a much busier operation.

Five machines. One view.

With more machines comes more to keep track of.

For Western Bay Spraying, knowing where machinery is and what’s happening across different jobs provides both operational visibility and peace of mind.

“Tabula Live is awesome. We’ve got one screen in the office showing all of the machines working at once.”

That visibility becomes particularly important when operators are working independently across different orchards.

“If one machine stops and you can’t reach them, you know to go and check. Somebody is watching over your shoulder.”

For customers, there’s another important benefit: traceability.

Spray activities can be recorded digitally, providing information about what was applied, where, when and at what rate. It’s become an increasingly important part of giving growers confidence in the work being completed. Western Bay Spraying also highlights those Tabula records as part of supporting audits, post-harvest requirements and grower peace of mind.

And for the operators themselves, accurate information helps take some of the uncertainty out of the job.

“When we finish spraying an orchard, we know we’ve not doubled up and we’ve not missed anywhere. Even if the team can’t talk to each other, they can see in real time where each other has been.”

Making the job easier

Some of the biggest improvements haven’t involved changing the job itself. They’ve simply removed the friction around getting it done.

Previously, if the required water rate changed during a spraying job, the team could need to create an entirely new job. Today, that adjustment can be made while the job is underway.

It’s a relatively small change that makes a considerable difference during a busy spraying programme. 

The ability to move job information between systems has had a similar effect.

Western Bay Spraying operates Atom sprayers, and the integration with Tabula means job files can be moved directly onto compatible equipment rather than relying on paper maps or manually recreating information – even between different companies.

“If someone else at a different company has a breakdown, and they’re using Tabula, they can simply email us over their job file. That contains all the important information for the job, and within a few minutes one of our operators has the data they need in our cab.”

Not long ago, getting that same information into another machine could mean drawing a map or spending considerably longer transferring the job.

Now, the priority is simply getting a machine moving again.

Chasing greater accuracy

After five years of growth, Western Bay Spraying isn’t planning on standing still.

“We’re definitely going to expand over time, and we’d never be without Tabula. We’ll keep chasing extra accuracy.”

It’s a simple statement that says quite a lot about how the business has developed.

One machine became five. Paper maps gave way to job files that can move between businesses and equipment in seconds. Individual machines became part of an operation that can be seen together from the office.

And as Western Bay Spraying keeps growing, Paul expects Tabula to keep growing alongside it.

“We love the product. We’d never go without it.”