Company History

Roesner Pty Ltd of Harvey, Western Australia, the manufacturers of Marshall Spreaders have been in operation since 1900. Founded by Arthur E. Roesner in Harvey, Western Australia, the company’s original focus was blacksmithing, coachbuilding and the manufacturing and repair of farm machinery.

The blacksmith trade became virtually redundant in the 1940’s and when Arthur’s son Roy took over the firm he introduced electric welding, a technique he had picked up in his time in the military during the Second World War. Besides general fabrication and repair of farm machinery Roy took on the International Harvester Agency selling tractors, ploughs and disc harrows.

In 1956 Roy was approached by Arthur Marshall to build a prototype fertiliser spreader, and by 1961 the first sales of the Marshall spreader were made to the local fertiliser company, CSML (now CSBP), as they wanted to promote the supply of bulk superphosphate fertiliser as an alternative to bagged product used at the time.

Marshall Spreader production grew quickly with sales throughout Australia and soon became the firm’s main activity. In the mid 1970’s the decision was made to specialise in the production of spreaders. Over 3000 Marshall Spreaders were manufactured.

By the 1980’s changes in farming practises lead to demand for an all purposes spreader that could spread ameliorants such as lime, gypsum, as well as manure and mulches. The Marshall Multispread was developed to meet this demand with the versatility to work in a wide range of applications, from small mixed farms to broadacre grain properties, vineyards and market gardens.

The Marshall Multispread has been Roesner Pty Ltd most successful product to date with over 10000 manufactured. Today Roesners have over 7000 square metres of shed space and use modern manufacturing methods such as Digital prototyping, Laser Cutting, CNC machining and automated paint mixing.  Roesners continue to integrate modern manufacturing methods with modern and continual design improvements to meet the requirements of today’s agricultural industry.

In the face of increased competition from overseas products and a push towards automation, in 2013 Roesners diversified into software and electronics to develop new products for the fast changing Precision Agriculture market. The first software product, the Multispread Calibration app released in 2013, has over 3000 users in Australia. In 2015 the Multispread MDC app – one of the first hardware systems for Ag machinery based on mobile technology in the World, won the Dowerin Field Day, Best New Innovation Award.

Sales of Roesner’s electronics systems grew quickly, and in 2018 the company acquired Precision Agronomics Australia (PAA), an industry leading company at the forefront of Precision Farming and Variable Rate Technology. The MDC system was merged with PAA’s Ratex system, rapidly accelerating the development of the i4M brand of machine controllers, mobile apps and web based systems.

Today the company is run by Managing Director, Jeffrey Roesner, the grandson of founder Arthur Roesner. Jeff’s two sons, Matthew and Mark are also involved in the business.