Category Archives: Agronomy

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Irrigation, LandWISE People, MicroFarm, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Sensing, Soil, Water

Dan Bloomer

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Dan Bloomer is the Manager of LandWISE having been instrumental in our formation and evolution since 1999. He and partner Phillipa established the Centre for Land and Water in Hastings and host the LandWISE MicroFarm.

The 2018 conference sees the wrapping up of three years of Onions NZ research in partnership with Plant & Food, much of the activity being undertaken at the MicroFarm. LandWISE has captured numerous paddock scale images of the onions crops using satellites, UAVs, sensors and smartphones. This has given insights into which tools have strengths for what purposes at what crop growth stages.

Using algorithms proposed by Plant & Food, LandWISE developed the on-line tool SmartFarm which allows smartphone captured crop development data to identify different management action zones and give guidance to the degree of variability.

Dan is particularly interested in soil and water issues, how we can continue to benefit from farming while maintaining or enhancing profitability and environmental health.

Dan has developed many resources for irrigators to check their systems. He spent many years on the Board of Irrigation New Zealand, developed Codes of Practice for Performance Assessment and has run many training programmes.

In recent years his attention has been drawn to precision drainage technologies, and he uses OptiSurface to understand and quantify ponding and erosion risk in paddocks and to design solutions for surface drainage. 

Dan actively scouts people,  technologies and problems, identifying opportunities to bring them together to effect change on farm. As such, he has initiated LandWISE’s research and extension programmes including some new initiatives to be launched at LandWISE 2018.

Dan represents LandWISE on the Precision Agriculture Association of New Zealand Executive Committee and is a frequent presenter at conferences and seminars.

When not working for LandWISE, Dan is an independent consultant at Page Bloomer Associates.

 

Agronomy, Conference, events, LandWISE People, Nutrients, Plant Health, Soil, Water, Weeds

Dan Drost

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Professor Daniel Drost is a vegetable researcher and extension specialist from Utah State University.

Dan Drost grew up on a small diversified animal and crop farm in Michigan (USA). He graduated from Michigan State University with a BS and MS degree in Horticulture. In 1983, he moved to New Zealand to teach Horticulture at Massey University. He returned to the US in 1987 to study at Cornell University where he was awarded a PhD in 1991 in Vegetable Crops and Plant Physiology. 

Dan’s research and outreach efforts focus on small intensive production systems, sustainable and organic agriculture, and how land-use management impacts field and farm scale productivity. In his 25 years at Utah State, he has authored more than 150 extension and scientific articles on vegetable production and management practices, shared his understanding of farming systems with producers, scientists and industry leaders around the world, and focused his attention on sustainable vegetable cropping systems that are farm appropriate, socially acceptable, and economically viable.

One of our invited international keynote speakers, Dan was bought to New Zealand in conjunction with Onions NZ and Plant & Food Research to discuss sustainable production systems. His presentation to LandWISE 2018 was titled “Sustainable Crop Production: Field and Farmscape Management for Sustainability”.

Dan says,

“Insects, diseases, nutrient management, and weeds pose yearly threats to vegetable productivity and sustainability. This presentation will address how to best manage the farmscape (whole farm) to protect and mitigate these risks in field and farm settings. Using examples from a variety of vegetable crops (annuals, perennials, intensively managed) grown in a range of settings, I will outline how modern farms adapt to and deal with yearly uncertainty.“

Dan and colleagues have completed a lot of work on high tunnels for crop production. See a video here.

You can hear and discuss sustainable production with Dan at LandWISE 2018 in Havelock North on 23-24 May.

 

 

Dan’s attendance at LandWISE 2018 was supported by AGMARDT

Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Conference, Data Analytics, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture, Research, Robotics, Sensing, viticulture

Armin Werner

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Armin Werner has a background in crop production sciences and as director of an Institute on Land Use Systems at ZALF in Germany worked on enabling new technologies for sustainable development.

Since 2013 Armin has headed the Precision Agriculture Science group at Lincoln Agritech (LAL), a subsidiary of Lincoln University in New Zealand. This covers Precision Farming (arable crops, pastures), Precision Livestock Farming, Precision Horticulture, Precision Spraying as well as Agricultural (Outdoor) Robotics.

Armin’s work has led him to create strong linkages and collaboration projects between various scientific disciplines and sectors including academic institutions, researchers and farmers.

Current projects  include trans-disciplinary and technology-based research in NZ for various high-value crops; e.g. on fruitlet counting and sizing for apple crop load management. He manages also the Robotic Spearhead project of the National Science Challenge ‘Science for Technological Innovations’ that develops new knowledge for small, highly adaptable and flexible robots.

At LandWISE 2018 Armin will update delegates on the “Precision Grape Yield Analyser”, a research project on vineyard sensing and yield forecasting that Lincoln Agritech is undertaking.

Armin says,

“The ‘Precision Grape Yield Analyser’ is an ongoing interdisciplinary MBIE-project, supported by NZ Wine Growers and several vineyards. Grapevine yields can vary between seasons by a factor of 2 and New Zealand grape growers are keen to avoid unplanned high yields. To assess the expected yield on the block level very early in the season we develop sensing tools and computer models. AI-based sensor fusion combines data from optical and microwave ‘scanners’ and feed the results into a continuously learning, predictive computer model.

Listen to Armin and discuss his work with him and others at LandWISE 2018 in Havelock North on 23-24 May.

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, LandWISE People, Plant Health, Precision Agriculture, Research, Sensing

Sarah Pethybridge

Assistant Prof Sarah Pethybridge‘s career spans from Tasmania, through Plant & Food Research in New Zealand to Cornell University in New York. She has a focus on vegetable disease management, and a goal to provide reliable information to vegetable growers and industry stakeholders to encourage adoption of durable management strategies and tactics.

A LandWISE keynote presenter, she described leading techniques and technologies to help optimise control tools and reduce the frequency of false positive or negative decisions.

Sarah told us, “We are now in the second year of our project with the center for imaging science at Rochester Institute of Technology looking at hyperspectral data to detect flowering in snap bean to optimize timing of fungicides, and using canopy density as a risk factor. We are also expanding this work into beets to detect and differentiate abiotic and biotic stress. In the digital agriculture arena, we recently released three apps on disease detection, quantification, and spatial analysis of epidemics using pixelated data.”

Sarah’s travel to New Zealand is supported by Cornell University,  McCain Foods, Heinz-Wattie and AGMARDT

 

              

Many thanks to AGMARDT, sponsors of our international presenters 

 

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Data Analytics, LandWISE People, Nutrients, Plant Health, Precision Agriculture, Sensing, Soil

Michael Nichols

Michael and Rochelle Nichols and their six children have a mixed farming enterprise at Sisters Creek in Northwest Tasmania.

The family crops Wheat, Pyrethrum, Poppies, Potatoes, Onions, Canola, Mustard, Peas, Buckwheat and run 80 Friesian steers. Michael has a contracting business which provides muck spreading, spraying and combine harvesting through which he buys local wheat and barley to on sell to local dairy farmers.

The closing of a vegetable processing plant in the state prompted the family to diversify and invest in canola oil. The canola is cold pressed and sold in cubes or bottled for retail sales. 

“The oil business is ticking along nicely.  We’re providing chickens with canola meal and the cold pressed canola oil is going mostly to the Japanese catering market, as they prefer the GM-free status. We go through about 120 tonnes of seed a year and produce roughly 50,000 litres of oil.”

Michael is a very passionate farmer and is using NDVI images to improve and even up crop yields with variable rate spreader applications and is verifying the results using yield data.

Michael is an invited international presenter at LandWISE 2018

Michael’s attendance at LandWISE 2018 was supported by AGMARDT

Agronomy, events, MicroFarm, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research

Onions Update Field Walk

LandWISE MicroFarm
21 Ruahapia Rd, Waipatu, Hastings
Monday 11 December 2:00pm

In our final year of “Benchmarking Onions” we have again planted a crop at the MicroFarm. It went into a suitably moist soil, emerged reasonably evenly but has shown increasing variation. We now have very good areas and very disappointing areas. 

We’ve mapped the crop with our CoverMap system again this season so we can compare 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 growth patterns. Are there areas that consistently perform better or worse? What is driving the variation we see?

We also have a few different varieties we are tracking to see how canopy development fits our web calculator. We want to know if the same calculations can be applied to phone images or if variety-based tweeks are necessary.

In a couple of fertiliser application trials we comparing standard and late application because we understand most nitrogen is taken up at or after bulbing. And based on our mapping, we are comparing the effects of full and half rates on areas where canopy cover is low. Maybe we can cut back, save fertiliser and leaching and get the same yield with improved bulb quality.

Come along and see for yourself!

Note: This field walk follows the HotGrass electric weeding demonstration, see more here>

Our Onion Research is in conjunction with Plant and Food Research. It is funded by Onions NZ and the Sustainable Farming Fund. This season we are being aided by Apatu Farms who are helping with field operations and harvest and we are very grateful for their support.

 

Agronomy, Nutrients, Soil

Practically managing soil N using quick tests

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Republished:
2014 Conference presentation by Matt Norris and Paul Johnstone
The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited

Norris NTestStripNitrogen fertiliser is used extensively to maximise productivity across a range of vegetable, arable and forage crops in New Zealand. Matching crop N demand with supply from residual soil mineral N, N mineralisation from organic matter and fertiliser N is central to economic and environmental outcomes in these sectors.

To improve nitrogen use efficiency, effective tools and approaches are required to help guide nutrient management decisions. One potential method is the ‘quick test’ soil nitrate (NO3-N) approach. This in-field approach uses a ‘test strip’ impregnated with a NO3-N sensitive alert zone which, with a simple colorimetric scale, may be used to measure soil solution NO3-N concentrations. Measured NO3-N concentrations can then be compared with critical threshold limits that have been established for a number of crops.

The quick test strips have already been used for a number of years overseas to support growers in making N fertiliser decisions. Depending on NO3-N levels at sampling, a test strip reading may indicate the need for fertiliser to be applied, withheld for a period or eliminated entirely. The test can therefore provide more certainty in decision making. In addition to being cost effective and simple to use, the quick test approach provides the user with rapid information thus enabling decisions to be made at short notice.

In 2013–14, Plant & Food Research undertook a series of proof-of-concept trials to examine the ‘quick test’ soil nitrate (NO3-N) approach under NZ conditions. The aim of the work was to:

  1. substantiate the relationship between test strip nitrate values and laboratory-determined mineral N (the ‘gold standard’) and
  2. assess the suggested quick test critical thresholds for making N fertiliser decisions in beetroot and carrot crops.

Results from this preliminary work were encouraging. Follow on trials will test further the suitability of the strip in making field-scale N fertiliser decisions.

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Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Sensing

Field Connect Weather Station

Since April 2017 we’ve been hosting a Field Connect weather station at the MicroFarm.

The station offers a set of weather readings comparable to our Plant and Food HortPlus weather station. The main advantage to us is easy access to (nearly) current conditions as the FieldConnect station is updating regularly during the day.

Being web-based we can view the data from anywhere, anytime. This has been helpful in checking wind conditions when irrigation or spraying is due and for our records after spray applications.

The online dashboard is easily customised, selecting the date range and sensors reported with a few clicks. That lets us compare soil moisture, PET and rainfall for example as shown below.

Over winter the station has been monitoring soil moisture in our access strip between cropped areas, but we can shift the sensor into crops to monitor those as we want.

The FieldConnect station is supplied by Cervus Equipment and was shown at the LandWISE Field Walk at the MicroFarm on Monday 11th December 2017.

Agronomy, AgTech, Projects, Research, Weeds

Field Scale Electric Weeder Consortium

Do you have an interest in field scale electrothermal weeders and being part of a project to make that happen?

Charles Merfield is leading a proposal to develop equipment in conjunction with Ubiqutek,  a UK company who originally designed electric weeders and have weeders in use in the UK and HotGrass, the NZ agent. 

The current commercial machines are ‘only’ hand held weeders aimed at the urban weed control market, e.g., councils, and their contractors.  However, the handheld machines can clearly demonstrate the potential of electrothermal, and Kazel Cass of Hotgrass, is doing a series of demonstrations around the country which you may be interested in attending.

If you would like more information about electrothermal weeders have a look at the FFC Bulletin article.

In any normal situation, Ubiqutek and Hotgrass as the owners / suppliers of the weeders would be developing field weeders themselves, however, both are very small business startups with limited funding and people resources, so they are unable to start work on a field machines for several years.  They also lack expertise in what is required from field machines especially for the different sectors, e.g., pasture, cropping, viticulture and other permanent crops, and therefore how to design them. 

The aim of Charles Merfield’s project is to accelerate the development of a field scale weeder so that NZ farmers & growers get access much sooner. To do this he is seeking farmers and growers who are interested in the technology and willing to contribute some funding. 

For more details, contact Dan at LandWISE or Charles Merfield at the Future Farming Centre.

 

Agronomy, Projects, Sensing

Benchmarking Onions Year 3

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The final year of our collaborative project with Plant and Food Research for OnionsNZ with support from the MPI Sustainable Farming Fund is underway.

This season we are linking with regional agronomists and farmers in Pukekohe/Pukekawa, Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury to further test the Management Action Zone tools.

One of the Pukekawa crops is most advanced and our mapping there starts very soon. Our aim is to map crops at 3 leaf stage, use that to identify canopy zones and take photos in each zone for detailed analysis.

The ground area calculated from the photos is added to plant population counts and run through a crop development model on SmartFarm.co.nz to predict final yield in each zone. The model also identifies if population of plant growth rate are causing lower than expected development, and therefore yield.

This field is almost ready for the first mapping exercise. We are somewhat nervous because the weeds can cause errors: green is green! Sometimes we can filter the weeds out of the images, but if there is very little difference between weed and onion, it is not yet possible.

The MicroFarm crop has started to emerge in recent days. We are keeping an eye on this to see what impact emergence has later.