A PROSERPINE engineered innovation is set to revolutionise the Indian sugar cane industry.

A billet planter designed and built by Main Engineering will be heading overseas this week after being commissioned by a farming machine business in India.

The planter is designed to be be pulled behind a 70hp tractor, significantly smaller than the tractors used to haul billet planters in Australia.

Owner of the business Nick Cutuli said he was contacted by a machinery dealer late last year about getting a custom made billet planter built.

If the mini planter takes off it will mean less work for Indian cane growers but more for Main Engineering.

"What this dealer needs to do is get it to India, trial it and do demonstrations and say 'look this is what we can do',” Mr Cutuli said.

"They are 30 or 40 years behind us and are still doing it all by hand.

"He now has to sell the idea to his customers.”

Main Engineering has been building this kind of machinery for the last 10 years but have never before exported their machines.

"Out customer base is pretty broad in Australia but this is definitely a first,” Mr Cutuli said.

Mr Cutuli said he hoped the arrival of the first billet planter opened doors to further farming machine exports to India and Asia.

"We have had other inquiries from Thailand and Cambodia and so far all those inquiries end when you say you have never exported a machine before,” he said, adding, "so now that we have exported it's a big tick in the box”.

The planter's capacity is 1200 kilos of billets. The standard machine in Australia holds 2,500 tonnes.

It comes equipped with with all chemical reservoirs and is ready to hook up to a tractor.