How to farm without diesel: Electric cherry farm a world first

They talk money: mostly the massive cost-of-production savings but also the additional income stream and the export-quality fruit they can now sell onto the domestic market because it's carbon neutral, which means deleting big freight costs.

Former computer programmer Mike Casey and wife Rebecca, a financial accountant, set up the high-density orchard on 9 hectares at Mt Pisa, between Cromwell and Wanaka on the south island.

Mr Casey used funds from the sale of his tech start-up in Sydney to Seek.

Their business partners, orchard manager Euan White and his wife Rachel, were also from a non-farming background.

Everything from irrigation and frost fighting to the 20 machines, including a tractor, on the farm is powered via on-farm solar and through the NZ grid.

Not a drop of diesel is used.

The growers have planted 9300 trees across five varieties to mitigate against weather events but also because the biggest market is Taiwan and Shanghai for Luna New Year, the dates of which change each year.

The fruit is grown under an upright fruiting offshoots system, which is fully-trellised and designed to optimise labor efficiency and fruit quality by creating a narrow fruiting wall that is easy to harvest and prune.

Mr Casey said while it was more expensive to set up, operationally it was far more cost effective.

And low cost-of-production is what Forest Lodge is all about.

They harvested 2 tonnes of fruit in 2022, 50t last year and next year, when the trees will be in full production, the estimate is 80 to 100t.

Of that, 35t is export grade and last year 2.5t of those were sold domestically under the Electric Cherry brand as farmed without the use of fossil fuels.

They are also selling fast-increasing volumes online, which provides a decent premium given the lack of distribution costs.

"One of the most amazing outcomes for us has been getting rid of that freight component," Mr Casey said.

Mr Casey says he is basically a climate activist who believes farmers are a big part of the solution.

He set out to learn the art of cherry growing from the experts in the region so he could put that belief into practice.

"We spent $600,000 more to set up than if we'd gone down the path of diesel," he said.

"But from day one we've cut energy costs enormously.

"This orchard would expect to make between $250,000 and $300,000 in EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) in a good year, which means those energy savings increase our profit margin by around 16 per cent.

"Over the past 12 months, 43pc of the energy used was generated off our rooftops and the rest came from the grid. Our target is above 60pc on-farm so we plan to install more solar."

The idea of interacting with the grid is that less batteries are required. Up to $1.5 million in batteries would be required to run entirely off the grid.

The challenge is the grid can be very expensive at times and cheap at other times.

When the hydro dams are full, for example, power can be almost free on the NZ grid.

Mr Casey wrote a computer program to arbitrage the grid spot price.

The farm is on a wholesale spot price contract, which means it buys and sells power at the same rate. Right now, it is pushing out 25kw a day back to the grid.

"We don't use any energy from the grid at all during peak periods," he said.

"The grid is now paying good money to export power back during peak periods and that is a real opportunity for farmers.

"We expect to make around $30,000 this year now that we have signed a contract to export with our local EDB (DNSP)."

Among the electric-powered machines on the orchard are the two 30 kilowatt frost fighting fans, imported from South Africa.

They are the first ever in NZ and Forest Lodge received a government grant to import them.

"One fan burning 40 litres of diesel for 12 hours is a really expensive trip to the pump," Mr Casey said.

"We are in a frost-heavy region where we fight frosts between 100 and 200 hours in a season.

"Of course, the more you use an electric machine the faster the payback period. So the additional costs to install these electric fans paid for itself in a year.

"It's a $26,000 a year saving over the diesel option."

Another piece of gear of high interest is the 30kW electric tractor.

"We run numerous implements off it, including a mower which we get 8 hours of mowing time with and recharge at night," Mr Casey said.

"On the back we have power plugs installed so we can build implements that will run off that rather than PTOs or hydraulics."

Mr Casey said his aim was to create a suite of renewable technology to help power Forest Lodge Orchard and allow Euan everything he needs to run the orchard effectively with low operational costs.

He believes farmers can electrify entire economies because they can supply the energy.

On the issue of battery end-of-life, he says the technology already exists to recycle safely and he is confident effective systems will be created once the market is there.