Stephen Freeman has seen his fair share of technological advancement in what even he says is machinery that sells because it's "simple".
The Marshall range of spreaders has become one of the top selling spreaders in the country for a number of reasons, the principal of Kerang-based Eastern Spreaders said.
"Probably because it is Australian built, it's a simple machine, you can get the parts anywhere, they're reliable and you have really good resale value,'' he said.
"The service and parts back up as well is an important factor.''
Those factors, whichever it is that's most telling, combine to sell on average more than 100 spreaders a year.
Eastern Spreaders services South Australia east of Spencer Gulf, and all of Victoria, Tasmania, NSW and Queensland with the Marshall spreaders and have been doing that since 1980.
"There are people out there who have had machines for 15 to 20 years and do so because of their simplicity and the back-up service we can provide. But now there's plenty of buyers looking at the new technology taking the simple spreader to a new level,'' Mr Freeman said.
"There a lot of farmers now looking to the computer controlled hydraulic drive and variable control units ... load cells and variable rate control is the big thing at the moment.
"Because of the rising cost of fertiliser, farmers are looking to take more control. You no longer need a blanket rate, you can have your farm mapped and they might want 50kg in a certain area for one soil type and on another soil type they might want 75kg or 80kg.
"They might know there's a shower of rain coming and they want to get their fertiliser and urea out ... and a big problem can be getting contractors when you want and need them."
Under a system developed by Matt Roesner, the Marshall spreader can be customised to include a wifi-linked system from a tractor cabin-mounted iPad to the spreader to control the application rate. The i4M system continually weighs and calibrates material as it goes out.
"I've seen the spreader go from a very basic and simple, manually operated, machine to where computers are taking over the whole machine and controlling it,'' Mr Freeman said.
Eastern Spreaders has also imported from Canada since 2000 the MDE feed mixer, imports Renn Roller Mills and has just started importing from England the Ktwo manure, or muck, spreader.