Category Archives: Agronomy

Agronomy, MicroFarm, Projects, Soil

LandWISE MicroFarm Activated

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With the generous support of many companies and individuals, the LandWISE MicroFarm is established and active. The first of two vining pea plantings has germinated and the rest is sprayed out in preparation for another planting in late-October.

We are holding the first MicroFarm Open Day on Thursday 5th December 2014. More in our newsletters.

We have set up a separate website for the MicroFarm at www.microfarm.landwise.org.nz There you’ll find an increasing amount of information as we post details of activities, progress and outcomes.

It is the first season of many over the next five years and like others we’ve struggled at times with weather and wet soil. Weather records from the on-site weather station are available on the MicroFarm website at http://microfarm.landwise.org.nz/farm/weather/ thanks to HortPlus.

With marking the paddocks out, setting AB lines and checking we can fit in the number of rows we want, spraying and planting we’ve driven on our soil a lot. A lot more than we would like. We want to minimise traffic impacts but with many different vehicles involved we’ve not done so well.

James Powrie and Dan Bloomer completed initial Visual Soil Assessments in each of the six Blocks. Worm numbers were lower than expected, contributing to moderate rather than good scores in two Blocks. More details here>

Block 4, with the main access gateway, shows significantly greater evidence of compaction. We’ll monitor that as we go: dealing with residual compaction is a key question as we try to maximise crop production.

Melanie from HydroServices has installed neutron probe soil moisture monitoring sites into Blocks 3 & 4. We are interested to see what the impact of compaction in Block 4 might mean for soil water holding. We’ll post results as testing progresses.

Paul Johnstone, Bruce Searle and Sarah Pethybridge from Plant & Food, together with Fenton Hazelwood and Grant Hagerty from BASF have designed a first look at plant growth regulators to control flowering in vining peas. We hope some control can raise harvestable yield. Vaughan Redshaw and Scott Marillier from Fruitfed Supplies in Hastings have sourced the materials we need. Because of significant rain, Tim Robinson from Peracto and Ben Watson from McCain Foods tested leaf status before first treatments are applied.

The remaining Blocks have been sprayed off for late peas. We are anticipating a slightly later planting date. In part we want to modify Patrick Nicolle’s drill to apply inocculants at planting and the parts have yet to arrive. . .

Agronomy, Controlled Traffic Systems, Irrigation, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Soil, Tillage, Water

Intensive cropping: Dealing with reality

We have a group in Hawke’s Bay focused on best management for field cropping.  We want to know how far we can push production without degrading the soil, our base resource.

We have drafted a five year cropping programme, based around process crops, but with other crops in the mix. This is typical in the region where process crops are mixed with onions, squash, some cereals, occasional potatoes and often winter grass.

In our programme we have tried to eliminate animals and pasture, looking instead at maximising vegetable production. Given the different seasons, season lengths and the realities of planting dates that must fit factory schedules, this gets a bit tricky.

Central to our plan are vining peas and green beans, two crops with specialist harvest equipment. Viners are very heavy. The bean harvester weighs in at about 18 tonnes plus 4 tonnes of crop when full. The pea viners are around 22 tonnes, plus a couple more of crop when full.

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These machines have large wheel or track footprints, so impact a wide path. And pea viners typically travel across the lie of the crop, not up and down rows, so can track anywhere. How does that fit our plans to adopt controlled traffic!

Gary Cutts of Tasman Harvester Contractors is at the centre of the action. The company currently has nine harvesting machines with a price tag of around $1million each. From December, the machines earn their keep, harvesting 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Peas are a very delicate crop and only have a premium harvesting window of 24 hours. Before that they’re too young, and after that they’re too old. It’s an exact science to determine when to pick.

For a successful harvest Gary’s team must respond to demand from the factory and deliver on time. Delays that affect factory processing are costly.  

The new harvesters, especially those on tracks, can get on to the ground even in very poor weather. But what is their impact on the soil? They are very heavy, they have big feet, and the soil may be weakened by wetness.

Gary contacted Marc Dresser at Landcare Research after hearing him at a LandWISE Conference. Marc is a specialist in soils and mechanical engineering whose knowledge is unrivalled. He worked with Gary on tyre selection and tyre pressures to optimise performance.

Together they reduced harvester tyre pressures from around 30psi to 20psi. They reversed the direction of jockey bin tyres too. Gary says the difference is immediately noticeable in the field. Coupled with a change to tracks, the soil load has been greatly reduced.

Gary still wants to know what the impact on the soil is. Are harvesters doing damage? If they are causing compaction, what is best practice remediation? When should it be done? How does it impact following crops?

We want to know too. And we want to know what a farmer can do to best prepare their soils before the harvesters arrive. Before the crop is even planted.

We can control traffic in pretty much all operations with the equipment in use now – except for the viners. We’ve looked at a number of scenarios, which suggest that the 30” row is the factor that sets the standard. Smaller tractors might straddle two rows, bigger machines can straddle four. If equipment is sized accordingly, we can get the trafficked area down to about 17% of the ground. Except for the viners.

Most paddocks only see peas about once in five years, so that leaves 4 years and 11 months of controlled traffic. But in our super-intensive farm, we might see peas almost every year and green beans too. We really do need to know how to manage this aspect of some of our important regional crops.

Agronomy, Controlled Traffic Systems, Precision Agriculture, Tillage

Where on Earth are we?

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2106-1 DSC_1332webTractors steer themselves. Self-positioning implements place seed, nutrients and cultivators exactly where they are wanted. Wheels stay on defined tracks leaving most of the paddock in optimum condition for plants to grow.

Detailed maps show soil varying within paddocks. Yield maps show different production in different parts of a paddock. Application maps record and prove where inputs were applied.

Animals are tracked and their movement patterns alert farmers to new births. Your stolen four-wheeler is recovered, the thieves tracked and location displayed on GoogleMaps.

Geo-location is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an object. Guided by GPS, we know where on earth we are. We become “spatially aware” and that is the basis of a revolution in agriculture.

Smart farmers depend on the precision of GPS and smart software, and are constantly find new ways to benefit. It leads to changed practice that captures efficiencies and optimises efforts. In the end, it makes things easier.

Self-steering tractors are far more accurate than any driver. They run exactly the same lines every time and free the operator to focus on more important tasks. “The money is made at the back of the tractor, so why spend all day looking out the front?”

As well as providing physical guidance, spatial awareness allows smart farmers to understand their farm in a new way, thinking about points not paddocks, aware of the differences. It lets farmers see how different things relate to one another. Where crop yields are above and below average and how that relates to soil variation. They can tune management to fit.

How accurate can we be, and what accuracy do we need? That depends on what you are trying to do.

Being a few metres out may be okay for some jobs: recording where you take soil nutrient samples, where a water trough is, a rough farm boundary. But for many farm applications, it isn’t good enough.

A good hand held GPS unit will get you within a few metres or so. This simple test demonstrates this:

· Put the GPS unit on a strainer post and record its position or way point

· Use the GPS to steer you back to the same way point later in the day or tomorrow

· See how close you are to the strainer post

You may a few metres out. And if you try again the next day, you’ll possibly be put somewhere different again.

For mechanical weeding, getting close to, but not into, a plant row is important. This requires GPS which reliably gets within centimetres. That entails a very good GPS receiver, and a correction signal using either RTK or CORS to fine-tune the accuracy of the position while the machine is moving.

This level of accuracy is only possible with automatic guidance. Most drivers using GPS for guidance steer within about one foot either side of the line. They can’t make use of a more accurate system because it is actually too hard to follow a guidance system any closer.

Two centimetre accuracy isn’t needed for broad-acre spraying or fertiliser spreading. But some opportunities are missed if a less accurate system is settled for.

When we are unsure of accuracy, we create deliberate overlap to ensure coverage, or create buffers to avoid causing damage.

When spraying, overlap represents overdose of chemical and can result in poor growth in current and following crops. Poor coverage represents under-application giving poor control or the possibility of increased herbicide resistance.

When cultivating, overlap wastes time and fuel, and means more damage to soil for no gain. The ability to return to exactly the same wheel tracks allows considerable energy savings too.

In the end, most cropping farmers want more accuracy and precision as they develop new ways of working with GPS. They all say – buy the most accurate system you can justify.

Agronomy, Controlled Traffic Systems, Precision Agriculture, Uncategorized

Farm equipment 2020

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This article was first published in “The Grower”, following a request for some thoughts on where cropping equipment is heading.

Farm Equipment 2020

An easy way to look stupid is to publish a prediction.

For example:

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.”—Western Union, 1876

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, 1977.

“Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.'”—David Pogue, 2006

“Technology Forecasting” seeks to identify technology trends and adoption rates. By tracking research papers, patent applications and early prototypes, an idea of when a new technology will appear, be first and broadly adopted, and its ultimate “market penetration” can be deduced. But it is notoriously difficult.

Looking at farm equipment, some directions are evident. But I’m very, very unsure about the time frames for broad adoption. And there are things just over the horizon that will be game changing. And of which we are absolutely ignorant.

Different folk adopt different things at different rates. Of the three base resources; land (and water), labour and capital, which are most limiting to your business? Your priorities for new ways and equipment will often see available capital move to make the use of your most limiting resources more efficient.

A reasonable assumption is that there will be fewer people producing more, higher-quality produce more reliably. They will use equipment that doesn’t look that different, but is much, much smarter. A planter will still look like a planter, but its control and recording will be vastly different.

Most changes will be to produce more from less – no change there in hundreds of years. But to produce more while minimising our environmental footprint is a newer spin. It will take us until 2020 to fully respond to regulatory changes.

Ten predictions:

1. Embedded information technologies will have a massive impact across all aspects of cropping.  That is an easy call; they already are with satellite guidance, machine control, data capture, smartphones and improving rural broadband access.

2. Almost all equipment will be delivered with smart technology on-board, though not enabled until a licence fee is paid. Infotech is becoming rapidly cheaper and better. The physical bits are relatively inexpensive to produce, but the IP can be costly.

3. Data capture and analysis will be more powerful yet simpler. Automated routines will capture and turn data into farmer friendly information for decision making and compliance reporting.

4. All farm “devices” will be linked, geo-located and synchronised: your phone, tractor, sprayer, office, car, cool room and irrigator. Vehicles will routinely gather crop information as they pass, feeding it wirelessly to the farm office for analysis.

5. We will not see variable rate application based on sensor data as a one-pass operation.  There are too many factors that influence the farm decision and it will be a while before all the considerations can be integrated automatically. Never say never?

6. Irrigation will be more efficient and smarter, using soil moisture data from sensor networks, and better integrated weather forecast information. Systems will deliver more accurate depths more evenly. The drivers are limited water supply and need to reduce nutrient leakage.

7. Variable rate system adoption will continue to increase and fertigation will be more widely used, especially in “fully nutrient allocated” areas. It offers tighter control and reduces the severity of any leaching.

8. Controlled traffic systems incorporating no-till, strip-till or permanent beds will be widespread, giving numerous benefits and very few downsides.   Guidance is already “mature technology” on cropping farms. Seven years is long enough for a lot of equipment to be replaced as a matter of course. Selecting options that match standard bout widths is relatively simple; then common AB lines give CTF by default.

9. Driverless tractor units for harvest trailers/chaser bins will be supervised by harvester drivers. If cars can already drive safely on public roads . . .

10. Robotic sprayers and mowers will be used in orchards and vineyards but will not be common in field cropping.

 

Agronomy, Controlled Traffic Systems, Precision Agriculture, Soil, Tillage

International Controlled Traffic Farming Conference – Queensland

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Very few farmers globally have converted fully to controlled traffic farming. So why did over 100 people from 13 countries gather in Toowoomba to talk about it?

“It offers huge benefits,” say farmers who are doing it.  “It offers huge benefits,” say researchers assessing its merits.

Who’s doing it? What benefits?

Few New Zealand farmers consider themselves to be CTF farmers. The system David Clark developed for maize in Gisborne is as pure CTF as any seen in Australia or reported in conference sessions. The system Chris Butler developed for salads and one being refined for onions and potatoes by Wilcox staff are also as advanced as any described at the conference.

PermBedsWeb

Permanent beds that leave wheel tracks unworked are a form of CTF for intensive vegetable production. They offer better access in wet conditions.

Many New Zealand arable and vegetable farmers are tramlining on a crop by crop or seasonal basis.

Controlled traffic farming (CTF) is any farming system built on keeping all wheel tracks to closely defined paths. This must take into account the interactions between farmers and their farms, soils, topography, crops, climate, equipment and technology.

Many studies have monitored a wide range of economic, biological and physical factors and seen positive gains. Numerous examples show very significant economic advantages from reduced costs and increased returns.

Significant savings in energy, labour and equipment operating costs were reported by all conference speakers. The relative spread and importance of savings varied. Labour savings are often more important in horticulture than in arable. Fuel saving in broadacre is relatively more beneficial than in intensive horticulture.

Soil quality improvements are well documented. CTF gives improved field access, higher soil strength and stability, deeper root exploration, increased water infiltration rates, increased water holding and nutrient access and elevated biological activity.

The farmers and researchers spoke of CTF as a system of farming, and noted that once traffic is managed, other benefits are found. They include enhanced irrigation, ability to establish crops more quickly and exploit smaller windows of opportunity and the ability to grow new crops.

Better field access allows more timely planting, field operations and harvest. These generally translate to better yields and crop quality and less frequent losses from adverse climatic events. No one reported significant yield depression.

The cost of conversion to CTF depends on the inventory of equipment on-farm. At first glance, the cost of transition can look prohibitive. But it need not be problematic if considered over a longer time period.

JD Axle extension Toowoomba Web

Axle extension for wide track CTF

Customising tractors and harvesters can be very expensive, but working with common standard widths is not. And under controlled traffic systems, a lot of equipment may become redundant.

Once optimum track and bout widths have been determined, a plan can be created. Few farmers will go out and replace all their equipment at once. But they can ensure new equipment purchased will fit the system that has been planned.

As several farmers stated, “Just get started, and think when you buy new gear. One day you’ll wake up and find it all just fits.”

Dan Bloomer was a presenter at the CTF Conference, on behalf of LandWISE members and New Zealand CTF farmers.

Agronomy, Irrigation, Uncategorized

Vegetables in the Israeli Desert

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This article was first published in The GROWER magazine following a trip to the UK and Israel to study water policy.

The Desert Blooms: vegetables from recycled water in Israel

 

We left Tel Aviv amid high security, the day after fighting began in Gaza. It was a sobering end to a tour of irrigation and horticulture in Israel.

In Israel, land is owned by the state, and a licence granted to farm it. There is, relatively speaking, a lot of land. There is virtually no water. Water is managed by the State, in trust on behalf of the people.

It’s a nation that desalinates almost a billion cubic metres of water a year, and uses 700 million for agriculture. The key is that agriculture is the second use: almost all ag water is recycled from cities. Parallel pipelines carry fresh and recycled water for thousands of kilometres around Israel. The huge infrastructure cost is borne by the state – it is a matter of national importance.

Much of our tour focused on drip irrigation, including a visit to its developers at Kibbutz Hatzerim, the home of Netafim. Hatzerim is 8 km west of Beersheba in the Negev desert. In such an inhospitable environment, the need for detailed management and high efficiency rapidly becomes obvious.

We visited the Arava Valley, south of the Dead Sea. This is the border with Jordan, currently peaceful after a treaty in 1994. Don’t jump the fence though, the explosive mines are still there, and flooding has redistributed them to who knows where.

In an area with 50mm of rain (if any) and 2,000 mm of evapotranspiration, water is a valuable commodity. The soils are saline, the water is saline. Drip is about the only way plants can be made to survive.  And survive they do, in soil brought hundreds of kilometres, with water brought hundreds of kilometres, to produce crops for consumption thousands of kilometres away in Europe. Why?

The key for the state, it seems, is occupation and security. The key for the farmers is a climatic opportunity that allows excellent production when Europe is freezing. Growing almost exclusively in tunnel houses of plastic or shade, yields can be very good and quality excellent. With water supplied to the district by the state, and to the gate by local agencies, it is supply that is limiting more than cost.

A typical farm is about 4ha, although some are increasing through aggregation. Key crops are capsicums (Bell Peppers) and table tomatoes, which together account for most production. All crops must be removed for a period around July to break pest and disease cycles. Farmers believe the policy is effective, as they have very low levels of disease or virus.  At this time it is too hot to grow anything anyway, and most people head to the coast for a holiday.

Farmers spoke of constraints. New development needs water which is seldom available. Their children want to move to the cities and high paying professions. Tomatoes produce about 20kg/m2, which farmers say is profitable. But they require three times the labour of capsicums, and some farmers just cannot get enough labour to increase production.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are alive and well. We visited a huge reservoir for an almond, olive and grape farm of several hundred hectares. To our Kiwi noses and eyes the water was filthy; to them it was gold. In the distance was its source, Arad, a city of 23,000 people drinking and flushing desalinated water and supporting Israeli agriculture.

Dan Bloomer, LandWISE

My thanks to Andrew Gregson of the NSW Irrigators’ Council for organising the study tour, colleagues Andrew Curtis (IrrigationNZ) and Hayden Cudmore (Australian Rice Growers’ Association) and those who hosted us along the way. Dan’s visit to Israel was self-funded.

 

Agronomy, Soil, Tillage, Uncategorized

Learning Lessons Again

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This article first appeared in The GROWER magazine in 2012. We were getting more reports of cropping paddocks disappearing in the wind, something I regard as a disaster. With a comprehensive flood protection system in place stopping alluvial deposition, no ice age looming to create more loess and hopefully no more major volcanic eruptions donating ash, our local Heretaunga Plains soils are no longer replenished. Once gone, they are gone.

Learning Lessons Again

Do we really forget strong winds are a regular feature in Spring?

Clouds of soil need not be part of this picture. Why do we not plan, or plan not, to account for these winds? I admit to frustration – wind is normal!

Many New Zealand cropping soils are loess covered gravels. Loess is wind-blown silt, ground out of the ranges during the ice age, and exposed by retreated glaciers. Unless we have another ice age, we are not going to get much re‑nourishment.

Many others are volcanic ash – such as from Taupo. Unless we have another (really, really) major eruption, we’ll not get more of that either. So we need to look after what we have.

The very simple message on light soils is that is if you open them up, they can blow away. And blow away they have.

When first developed, horses were used to till land for pasture and cereals. The late soil scientist, Elwyn Griffiths, said that in some parts of the Ruataniwha Plains “about three feet” of soil was lost within a few decades.

Mechanisation replaced horses, powered implements created fine seed beds and wind erosion continued. In the mid-1990s severe erosion events were reported.

A local field rep said, “We lost over 50mm of soil this Spring. I know we did; we planted peas an inch deep, the wind blew and the pea seed bounced across the highway. We replanted and that lot blew away too. Then it was too late to grow peas so we planted sweetcorn instead. Even that got damage.”

In 1999 LandWISE set out to stop wind erosion.  Valuable knowledge about how to keep soil from drifting across the plains and out to sea was gained and disseminated.

Direct drilling or no-till stops wind erosion completely. So long as there is effective ground cover, the particles are retained.  No-till was good for grass and cereals, but less promising for process crops and squash.

LandWISE developed and proved strip-till techniques that allow for seed bed creation yet keep soil intact. With half to two-thirds of the ground still covered with thatch or residues, the soil avalanche can’t get started: strip-till stops wind erosion too.

The additional benefits are numerous: Better water holding capacity, better drainage, reduced fuel consumption, no sand-blasted young crops, less grit in your eye, a soil resource to pass on through the generations, time and energy savings, reducing costs and carbon footprint into the bargain.

Minimising tillage consistently proved viable and cost effective on light soils. It rapidly showed benefits on heavy soils too. The soils were stronger, better draining and generally in better condition. Machinery cost and fuel use were halved.

“It’s a no-brainer,” we said, and devoted several years to demonstrating the techniques, pitfalls and benefits.

Labour weekend 2012, thirteen years later, and across Hawke’s Bay we see clouds of topsoil leaving fully cultivated paddocks. The wind is taking away the richest part of the soil, removing nutrients and water holding capacity and damaging developing crops.

My frustration is amplified. One of these disappearing paddocks is the very one where all our work started. Others are paddocks where strip-till or no-till has been used very successfully in the past.

Why do we have to learn these lessons again and again?

Dan Bloomer, LandWISE

Agronomy, Soil, Tillage, Uncategorized, Water

Risk Management for Good Practice

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The future hasn’t happened yet. Today we make educated guesses and do something. Later, we’ll discover if our choices were good.

We use “good agricultural practice” even though it is no guarantee. What seems right today turns out not to be. Hindsight is easy. Its value is in building knowledge for foresight the next time around. Foresight is part gamble, but greatly enhanced with local knowledge, historical context and good advice.

Growers need to make a profit. And they are expected to keep people, property and the environment safe. This is central to good agricultural practice. With so much uncertainty about so many factors, and so many things to consider, getting it “right” is a big ask.

Good agricultural practice applies deliberate choices based on good information, acknowledging and accounting for unknowns. It weighs the likelihood and implications of possible events against potential costs and rewards. Much attention has been placed on the financial side, but increasingly the environmental aspects must be taken into account.

Implementing a formal risk management approach enhances good agricultural practice. Risk management involves identifying hazards, assessing associated risks and implementing interventions. Things will go wrong, but the frequency and consequence are reduced.

Hazards are things that can cause or lead to events with undesirable consequences. Heavy rain, frost, pests and market collapse are hazards.

Risk combines the likelihood of the event happening with the severity of consequence. There will be heavy rain events, but how often? They can destroy crops, leach nutrients, wash away soil and damage infrastructure. What are the immediate and on-going severe consequences? How much will they cost? What effect on waterways?

Interventions are actions that avoid, minimise or mitigate the event or consequence. The size of risk and effectiveness of intervention help determine the investment that is justified.

Good practice has always had an element of risk management. Making it explicit helps demonstrate that the potential impacts of adverse events have been considered and appropriate management applied.

Who should decide what good practice is? Should it be prescribed, or should farmers have choice?

We prefer to have choice. Every site on every farm is unique – yes, your soils are different! By assessing our own situation and making our own justified plans, we can get the best fit for site, fit for purpose good practice.

Creating a full risk management plan for every aspect of farming is a daunting task. The same process can be followed to manage any risk. But it will be harder if we are dealing with unfamiliar topics or are not sure of the possible problems and solutions. We want to make it easier.

As part of the “Holding it Together” project, we scoped a risk management process to address soil quality and loss. We saw resources to help farmers work efficiently through a robust process, identifying and quantifying hazards and risks, and sifting through potential interventions would be useful.

A book or website with checklists and supporting information would make things much easier. Imagine clicking on a “hazard” and seeing a list of risks and image sets showing relative severity and ideas on avoiding the impact. Follow the cues relating things to your farm. Click “Print” and your Good Practice Risk Management Plan is complete.

Dan Bloomer and Phillipa Page, LandWISE

Agronomy, Uncategorized

Resilience

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Resilience is the ability tobounce back from adverse events. When we are generally happy and healthy we can handle most things nature (or life) throws at us. If we are run down, tired and sick, the slightest thing seems to knock us for six.

Farms are very much the same. They handle adverse events better if the soil is healthy, water available, and infrastructure (and capital) in place. And the reverse is true too. Beaten up soils, lack of water, inadequate or poorly maintained infrastructure and high gearing leaves a farm (and its people) at higher risk when bad things happen.

Resilient Cropping Workshops

Building resilience into cropping farms is the aim of our “Resilient Cropping” project. A joint venture between LandWISE, Foundation for Arable Research, Horticulture NZ and Tahuri Whenua the Maori Vegetable Growers Collective, it is funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries.

A main focus of Resilient Cropping is preparing for adversity such as extreme weather events, fuel cost spikes and restricted access to irrigation water. In-field workshops across the country involve local growers sharing experience and ideas and proposing local solutions.

Among the topics covered are soil quality, irrigation efficiency, nutrient management and energy use. A common question is, “what can we do to best prepare for uncertainty?” An alternative is, “How should we farm knowing that adverse events will certainly happen sometime, and possibly more often?”

Is resilience an issue?

The first stage of the Resilient Cropping project was a survey of growers about the impact of adverse weather on farming businesses.  101 replies were collected.  Some respondents were offended by the survey and made the point that managing the impacts of the weather on their farming businesses was what farming was all about.

Diana Mathers reported that, of 101 respondents, only 9 had not lost money from a climate related event in the last 5 years. Only 7 believed that climate variability would not affect their business in the future.

Severe weather had impacted two thirds of cropping businesses two to four times in the last five years. Weather events affected profitability of more than three quarters of growers. Almost half said the losses were severe.

Farmers in Canterbury, Hawkes Bay and Gisborne said both drought and rain are important regional issues. Those without irrigation ar condisering a change their farming system.  Some are looking to reduce cultivation intensity to reduce soil moisture losses, while others are changing the sort of crops that they grow.

What do undesirable events cost?

Estimating crop yields, their value, and the cost of lower production is made easier by a LandWISE tool called YieldEst. It is an output from our Sustainable Farming Fund project, “Assessing the cost of crop loss at paddock scale”.

Growers and agronomists recognise areas of suppression, damage and loss within crops. YieldEst systematically assesses the financial cost of losses and the contribution of adverse events. Quantifying the cost of lost production and the relative impact of different problems also helps target where efforts will have most benefit.

YieldEst starts by assessing the yield in the main part of a paddock, and comparing that to expected or “potential” yield. Because it can consider multiple grades with different prices, a shift to lower grades will be also identified, along with the monetary implications.

Variable paddocks are assessed by monitoring yield in “Loss Zones”.  Growers are asked to name the “cause” of lower production in each zone and again, multiple grades can be entered.

The project was funded by the MPI Sustainable Farming Fund, LandWISE members and Horticulture New Zealand levy payers through the Vegetables Research and Innovation Board. The YieldEst tool was developed with generous in-kind support from Chris Folkers at ASL Agricultural Software.

Dan Bloomer, LandWISE

Agronomy, Drainage, Irrigation, Soil, Uncategorized, Water

Steps towards Farming Within Limits

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The article was first published in The GROWER magazine.

Farming within limits is the phrase of the year, by-line of numerous conferences, and part of many conversations. Farming within limits is nothing new. Financial constraints, market size, climate and soils, labour . . . you name it.

But farming within off-farm environmental limits puts a new spin on the topic. Both regulators and growers are under pressure to lift performance. Fortunately Horticulture New Zealand took a lead role years ago when it launched New Zealand Good Agricultural Practice.

New Zealand GAP is constantly evolving to meet new opportunities and requirements. And the bar will continually lift as governments, markets and other stakeholders expect ever higher standards from producers. But good agricultural practice is, and will be, the core of farming successfully within limits.

Successful growers already aim for profitable production with environmental stewardship. They have systems that ensure the basics are done well, and for continuous improvement. They measure to manage, they record to report.

These leaders of the pack are prepared for, and often do well from, change. They have a mind-set of adapting management to meet or beat changing situations. They already do a bit extra such as riparian planting and supporting local stream care. They are ready for most, if not all, that “farming within limits” may throw at them.

It is a year since the National Policy Statement (NPS) for Freshwater Management 2011 came into effect requiring councils to set limits on fresh water quality and the amount of water that can be abstracted from our rivers, lakes and aquifers.

Councils have four years left to establish programmes that will give effect to the NPS by 2030. They will need to amend regional policy statements, proposed regional policy statements, plans, proposed plans, and variations. It is a lot of work, and councils are under pressure to have the necessary changes in place sooner rather than later.

Government stated, “We are committed to monitoring improvements in fresh water management from the NPS and reviewing its effectiveness within five years as the complete package of reforms is rolled out.” There is a strong sense of urgency.

Growers can take action now. Both on and off-farm activities are needed, and many things can happen in parallel. There is a need to be involved, and no need to wait to do things better.

The freshwater quality driver points to many things; irrigation and nutrient management, soil conservation, stream enhancement, eel fishery management, and a range of environmental offsets. It is the effect of the combination of all management and mitigation that will determine the outcome.

Of the off-farm activities, Horticulture New Zealand Natural Resources and Environment Manager, Chris Keenan, says, “The key task in front of growers right now is participating in a limit setting process, because that will determine how much effect limit setting will have on the business.” Chris Keenan further notes that if they are going to do this effectively, they will need to be organised. Catchment management groups will be necessary in many cases, if not all cases.

On-farm, growers can adapt their management.

Two critical on-farm factors under direct grower control are water and nutrient management. We can’t control the rain, but we can definitely control irrigation and artificial drainage. And we are in control of our fertiliser application and can do quite a lot to keep nutrients in the root zone.

Our evaluation of irrigation systems and irrigation management records shows a wide range of performance. Some growers are highly focused, manage intensely and have high water use efficiencies.  Unfortunately, some don’t.

Without carefully monitoring soil moisture levels, weather forecasts and irrigator performance testing, effective efficient irrigation is impossible. You must know how much is needed, and how much is going on. If the basics are not right, no amount of fancy technology will help.

The same is true for nutrient management where a wide range of performance is evident. Some growers apply excellent soil fertility testing, nutrient budgeting and planning, and fertiliser spreader calibration; essential steps to maximise nutrients use.

Water and nutrient management are closely linked. Too much water will cause unnecessary nutrient loss to freshwater, just as will too much fertiliser.  Too little water reduces crop growth which leaves unused nutrients in the soil, often also increasing losses that end up in freshwater.

Fortunately, efforts to manage water and nutrients better can improve farm profitability as well as environmental performance. So it can be a win-win. Focus on getting the basic things right. Look for big, easy gains first. Then look at fine-tuning.

Catchment management groups, farmers getting together to manage the overall effect of all activities on the quality of water in each catchment, are a powerful way to make progress. Such groups provide a forum for ideas, a place of co-operative learning, agreement on actions and priorities, and opportunities for benchmarking performance.

If everyone performed at the level of the top quarter, overall performance would rise significantly. Then the community would be able to see the fresh water quality improvements sought.