But the ‘unshortable’ electric fence that is today integral to any modern farming system was only one part of a legacy of inventions left behind by Doug, who died recently at the age of 90.
His electric fence was initially two wires a metre apart and buried 15cm carrying a high voltage and low impedance current to test whether dairy cows would cross the line – they didn’t. An even better idea was to electrify fences above ground to retain a bigger voltage for 10 times the distance.
It was his earlier work on the leakage of electricity in dairies that prompted the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) scientist to develop an electric fence (Dairy Exporter (February 2011, page 26).
Doug had offered all commercial rights to his successful Phillips Fence to MAF but the ministry, in its wisdom, rejected the offer.
Electric fence companies, then using a high impedance circuit (car ignition coil) design that was too easily short-circuited by vegetation, were also sceptical.
One fence company representative declared the renamed Waikato Fence unworkable and began attaching a small capacitor to prove his point.
“He got a huge shock … was literally thrown against the wall. He got up, grabbed his bits and walked out. We didn’t hear from him again,” said Doug.
An improved electric fence patent, filed by Doug in 1994, was for a pulse generator that acted as a switch for random bursts of high voltage through an otherwise low output line – a design requiring much less power while keeping animals shy of the wire.
It’s an idea still waiting for a backer. But there was no delay for Doug’s rising platemeter to measure pasture growth, patented as the Phillips Disc Grass Meter by Doug and his brother Evan.
Other patents were for liquid measuring devices (milk meters) wired into milking machinery and a milking claw to eliminate mastitis cross-infection.
In retirement Doug was designing a milking pulsator to dampen the sudden jump between vacuum and air pressure pulses, again to minimise mastitis infection of the teat, and with his son Peter, of Peta Enterprises in Hamilton, had helped develop a 48-hour mineral release ‘bead jet’ dispenser for water troughs.
Doug’s interest in trough dispensers grew from his formulation in the 1950s of anti-foaming remedies to dissipate bloat.
While some had criticised or “cadged” his designs, others like Plastic Products’ Morty Foreman became firm friends, Peter said.
“Dad was positive about everything and not a bad word was said about anyone or anything.”
His father was greatly honoured when his peers awarded him, at the age of 77, the NZ Grassland Trust’s highest accolade, the Ray Brougham Trophy, in 2001.
Doug had long retired to Waihi Beach with his wife Dulcie, although Peter recalls his father being busy for the first few years with his completion of doctorate studies at Waikato University – the first science doctorate conferred by the university and awarded to Doug in 1989 at the age of 65.
Among other inventions were insulated fence staples, a towball cushion, a window lock and a keyboard requiring only 20 milligrams of key pressure, about the weight of a fly, for the possibility of spiritual communication.
He developed a turntable device for proving or disproving Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, a theory Doug found inconsistent.
Doug is survived by Dulcie, his wife for 65 years, their children Glenys, David, Peter and Carol and five grandchildren.
