Just over fifty years ago, the first chopper cane harvester was driven into a paddock in Proserpine, bringing with it a vision that was heckled long before it was embraced by the region’s cane farmers.
Holding the book which contains the original minutes of the very first meeting of Up River Harvesting, founding members Jack Grosskreutz and Frank Raiteri told the Guardian of their journey which began all those years ago in 1961 and how it would forever change the face of cane farming in Proserpine.
Their jubilee celebration might be one year late, however there might be one very good reason for this … the collapse of the Proserpine Sugar Mill’s co-operative – an entity over which they shed much blood sweat and tears - occurred at about the same time last year bringing with it too much heartache and uncertainty to warrant a celebration.
Early in 1961, Jack and Frank remember hiding in a cane paddock, well before dawn, watching a Massey 515 cut cane in a paddock in Mackay.
“Oh ... everyone in the street they’d all say “we knew it was coming” but did they speak up in the beginning? No … but Jack and I did our homework,” said Frank.
“It was pitch black but we hid in the cane and watched the men come along and I remember the way it just rolled over those bloomin’ stones by lifting its base cut up a bit. We knew we were onto something.”
Early in 1961, Up River Harvesting which consisted of pioneering farming names such as Oscar and Hector Lawrence, Eric Atkinson, and the two story tellers, purchased Proserpine’s very first chopper harvester for some 6000 pounds and drove it back to town.
“Oh people were dead against it, especially those high up in the mill board and Canegrowers. They said you cannot do it, you will be taking jobs away from the cutters, and Proserpine will become a ghost town. But it wasn’t going to and didn’t. I tried to tell them that jobs would be replaced, we’d need engineers, boiler makers, mechanics and drivers … but still they didn’t listen.”
So against all odds, Up River Harvesting began cutting their group’s cane with their Massey 515, which apparently cut quite well with a cutting rate of over 20 tonne an hour.
But it wasn’t only the harvester that the group had to purchase from Mackay, they also had to bring up their own bins.”
“See, before chopper harvesting, cane was brought to the siding by truck but that wasn’t going to work with the new harvester so we had to buy our own bins.”
It took a good few years before the majority of groups were operating chopper harvesters, an era laden with a lot of heartache, the partners recall.
“A few years after we first started operating the harvester, I was on the executive of the Canegrowers. I can always remember everyone at a meeting having a heckle at the Raiteris ... and how we’d done the wrong thing. I stood up and yelled "you are all a bunch of hypocrites, in ten years you’ll all be using chopper harvesters," I remember saying, and sure enough they were.”
Jack and Frank agree they were good as partners. They each knew what the other was capable of - and rarely had time to argue.
“There was always maintenance work to do on the harvester, no we’re not mechanics, self-taught yes. Frank would always work with the metal and the welding and I was one for the bolts and bearings. We didn’t really have time to argue. If we weren’t cutting, we were repairing.”
The pair’s reputation as the region’s harvesting entrepreneurs travelled far and wide with Massey Ferguson and Toft (later Case IH) reportedly, dropping in at the farm quite frequently.
“In 1968 I started a prototype harvester and fitted a conveyor which took the cane three feet up the belt before it got to the choppers which gave the dirt and the rocks a chance to fall out. I remember as plain as day that Massey coming out and saying if I altered the harvester, they wouldn't be honouring the warranty. I didn’t care ... I didn’t need their warranty but sure enough a later harvester of Masseys came out with my invention and I never took a patent out on it,” Frank said.
Thinking back over the past five decades, there are few things the founding members of Up River Harvesting would change.
“I never spared the horses,” said Frank.
“When I was sure of something … I’d go for the jugular and I knew chopper cane harvesting was the future. To this day I remember a top pin in Queensland sugar laughing at me, told me I was dreaming when I told him that the entire state’s sugar would be cut by chopper harvesters within the decade.”
Up River Harvesting was passed on to Frank’s son Lou, the former chairman of the Proserpine Mill board and now to Gary, Lou’s son, who was yesterday covered in grease following in the footsteps of his forefathers.
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