Category Archives: AgTech

Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Conference, Innovation, Orchard, viticulture

Connecting Horticultural Work with Workers – Genevieve Griffin-George

Genevieve is a kiwifruit grower and founder of PicMi, a digital platform connecting horticultural work with workers.

With a  foundation in spatial design, she joined PWC as an Experience Designer, scoping and shaping work, and creating a platform and accelerator for new ways of working. Supporting clients with their strategic initiatives, she specialised in group facilitation, design thinking and provide neutral, safe discussions around the strategic or tactical needs of the business.

Her mission to create straight-through seasonal hiring was born from Genevieve’s first-hand experience of the frustrations of hiring for her family’s kiwifruit orchard in the Tasman. She stepped in to help when her father had a serious tractor accident, and came face-to-face with the pain and time pressures of trying to find seasonal staff.

At LandWISE 21, Genevieve will outline the problems she encountered, and her path to finding a solution and creating a business to make the process of engaging with growers and workers easy, and meeting the many aspects of compliance.

Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Conference, Data Analytics, Fruit, Innovation, Orcharding, Precision Agriculture, Sensing, viticulture

Unlocking the Value in Maps – Matt Flowerday

Matt Flowerday has been involved in farming and horticulture his whole life.

Matt started using GPS to map farms and orchards in 1998. In 2001 he set up GPS-it to carryout GPS mapping, with a focus on kiwifruit.

From beginnings in a small office on a kiwifruit orchard, with just one staff member and a GPS unit, the business has evolved significantly. GPS-it is now an established aerial farm mapping and software development company, providing high-quality customised geospatial solutions to our clients, using ESRI technology.

At the LandWISE 21 Conference, Matt will show how Landkind, an interactive platform that lets orchards and packhouses unlock the value of their maps, improves productivity and profitability by allowing users to create, manage, and interact with orchard data effortlessly.

Thanks to all our sponsors!

 

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Research, Weeds

Rapid Test for Resistance – Andrew Griffiths

Andrew Griffiths is leading work identifying genetic markers of herbicide resistance. The broad aim is developing tests that allow the quick assessment of weed tissue that shows a plant is resistant to herbicide.

Currently plants are gown to maturity, seeds harvested, sown, grown and treated with varting rates of herbicides. This is a slow and costly process. The genetic marker tests could give answers in days.

Andrew is a Senior Scientist at AgResearch where he has worked extensively on forage improvement, including researching the genetics of grasses and clovers.

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Innovation, Precision Agriculture, Research, Weeds

Thor Versus Tinkerbell: Options for weed control – Dan Bloomer

Dan Bloomer is an aging part-time PhD student at Massey University.  Passionate about farming and technology, he’s been an irrigation consultant, kiwifruit orchardist, lecturer, and land management advisor. He is currently Principal of Page Bloomer Associates, member of the AgritechNZ Executive Council, and importantly, Manager of LandWISE Inc.

At LandWISE 21, Dan will describe some alternative non-herbicide weed management technologies, and give consideration to the amount of energy they may require.

The amount of energy required typically ranges from 2 to 2,000 Litres of diesel per hectare. With a desire for sustainable practices and low energy consumption in food production, Dan’s current focus is using very targeted, high voltage but low energy techiques to effect control of arable weeds, including braodleaves and ryegrass in cereal crops.

Dan’s weeding research is part of an MBIE AgResearch project “Managing Herbicide Resistant Weeds”, with Dan’s role being assessing non-chemical techologies including hot water/hot foam, compressed-air abrasion and electric weeding.

AgTech, Automation, Conference, Innovation, Precision Agriculture, Weeds

Developing an Electric Weeder – Hamish Penny

Hamish Penny started the electric weeding company Weda Tech in 2019. He has a passion for solving problems with technology.

Hamish was introduced to agritech in his final year engineering project which focused building an electric weeding device.

Since then, Hamish has completed a Master’s in Engineering and worked on several projects including Weda Tech, which aims to commercialise the unique equipment he has developed to provide weed control options for farmers.

Electric weeding is the destruction of weeds with high-voltage electricity. Differentiating it from other non-chemical weed control techniques, electricity allows a systemic kill of a whole plant, low energy usage, minimal soil disturbance, operation in wet soil conditions, and can control weeds in close proximity to crops – even when touching.

Weda Tech was founded to harness the inherent benefits of electrical weed control and use a precision approach to develop novel equipment that can control the widest variety of weeds in the widest range of environmental conditions. The focus has been to build highly flexible pulse generation equipment and powerful measurement techniques to allow understanding of the way weeds respond to specific treatments.

There are some obvious synergies between electric weeding and image-based weed recognition and robotics, that could be combined to maximise the capabilities of electrical weed management.

There are a few start-up companies around the world developing and commercialising electric weeding equipment, including Rootwave (who have recently been collaborating with the Small Robot Company), Crop.Zone and others. Weda Tech is focused on thinking about the problem differently and through an understanding of the optimal dosage for a specific weed in specific conditions, is creating solutions that solve the most significant problems faced by farmers.

A strip weeding device is currently under development, with a 10-20cm wide electrode that could control a strip next to a crop or, be combined in parallel to control any width of paddock.

The current research device will also be developed into a site-specific weeder that can control low weed densities, with a robotic or human arm guiding to the target weed.

Plans for future development remain open and feedback is welcome.

Listen to a Summary Sound Clip here:

Thanks to our Conference Sponsors

AgTech, Conference, Fruit, Innovation, Orcharding, Vegetables

New Zealand’s Place in the Agritech World – Nick Fitzpatrick

Nick Fitzpatrick has spent the last 20 years in Primary Industries, primarily Fresh Fruit and Vegetable sector including 15 years with T&G Global’s International division, including establishing their Latin America business with offices in Peru and Chile, and in Asian market expansion.

More recently Nick worked for  California based Science and Innovation start up company – Apeel Sciences, introducing plant based science and technology solutions to post harvest operators globally.

Now consulting to the Agriculture industry, including Callaghan Innovation, Nick is passionate about helping companies to embrace Innovation and Sustainability across their business.

With this background and his current role as Project Lead – Agritech Commercialisation at Callaghan Innovation working within the Agritech ITP, Nick was well placed to inform LandWISE 21 delegates about New Zealand’s place in a big world increasingly focused on agritech development.

Nick introduced the NZ Agritech Industry Transformation Plan and its aims:

  • using comparative advantage to grow Agritech as a high value export sector
  • Lifting primary sector productivity & sustainability, and enabling companies to move from volume to value
  • Contributing to global environmental and sustainability
    challenges, and helping feed the world & reduce emissions

Callaghan Innovatoin is developing and early adopter network. THe aims are

  • Ensuring companies are solving the right problems
  • Increased collaboration between Industry, Agritech companies and government + Research partners
  • Better understanding of the ‘size of the prize’, both in NZ and Offshore.
  • Better prepared Agritech companies when showcasing/trialing products or going to market.

Nick explained the size of LATAM opportunities while contrasting the nature of agriculture and horticulture in Chile and Peru. Chile has good infrastructure, an educated population, and a qualified
technical workforce in the Fruit industry. Their key products are Cherries, Grapes, Pipfruit, Berries, Citrus and Avocados.

Peru is emerging as regional superpower. It has a different agriculture structure to Chile which has thousands of small farms and hundreads of packers and exprters. Peru has a number of very large farms. The key products are Berries, Grapes, Avocados, Citrus, Mangos, and Vegetables.

In summary:
Chile and Peru in particular are ripe for introduction of new, cost efficient, technology as the fruit sector transforms from being heavily dependant on human labour to embracing automation and
innovation. Chileans and Peruvians are eager to engage and open to new tech in Agriculture.

Listen to a Summary Sound Clip here:

AgTech, Conference, Innovation, Precision Agriculture

Agritech in Hawke’s Bay – David France

David France has extensive practical business experience in the primary sector and international food marketing. He owns a vineyard in Hawke’s Bay and is involved in a number of private businesses.

David has a passion for wanting to drive productivity and sustainability in the primary sector by supporting and growing the ecosystem with a focus on Technology, Talent, Innovation and Investment.

David chairs of the Hi-Tech Hawkes Bay Group which was set up to support the tech sector and includes number of Agritech businesses throughout the region. He has been involved in regional sector and cluster development.

He has a great overview of what is happening in Agritech and other tech industries in Hawke’s Bay and the key technologies driving the sectors, topics he will discuss at LandWISE 21.

AgTech, Automation, Conference, Fruit, Innovation, Robotics, Vegetables

Mechanising Produce Handling – Rob Elstone

Rob Elstone is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hortworx and owner of RBE Automation.

Coming from a background in aviation, commercial and industrial electrical, Rob was Lead Automation Engineer with Fruit Handling systems and subsequently Compac Sorting.

Having spent the last 7 years in the fruit industry, Rob’s passion for machine building has led to the launch of Hortworx’ flagship products, the Robotic Bin Filling range.

With the goal to improve the efficiency of Packhouses and Orchards, through the smart use of robotics, Rob has a vision to maintain the human machine collaboration through “Inclusive Automation”.

At LandWISE 2021, Rob will talk about the development of products for the horticulture industry. He will have equipment on display at the field event.

Thanks to all our sponsors!

Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Conference, Controlled Traffic Systems, Cover crops, Drainage, Fertiliser, Innovation, Irrigation, Membership, MicroFarm, New Crops, Nutrients, Orchard, Plant Health, Precision Agriculture, Research, Soil, Uncategorized, Vegetables, Water, Weeds

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A message to our members and friends

LandWISE runs on a voluntary membership basis with an annual subscription of just $100 for the current year. Subscriptions are now due and our Financial Members will be getting their invoices sent out shortly.

If you are already one of our Financial Members, Thank You! Can you please help us again by recommending us to a friend?

We haven’t changed our subs for years, but are starting to review that. What would be best, is if more of our followers chose to join!

Not a Member? JOIN HERE!

If you’re getting and valuing our newsletters, downloading and listening to our podcasts, accessing the resources on our website or the FertSpread tools etc. please think about giving us a hand.  It really will only cost you about half a cup of coffee a week, but it will make a big difference to us.

How does LandWISE fund its activities?

Our overheads are kept rock-bottom. The MicroFarm, our offices and equipment are provided as an in-kind service by Page Bloomer Associates. Our Board is voluntary, and we meet mostly by email and video conferencing. But we do need to pay accountants and insurance and run websites and the other things every organisation has to do.

Our major activities are funded on a project by project basis. That means we need a lot of support from co-funders so we can access (hopefully) various reasearch and extension grants such as MPI’s Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund (SFFF). Our Conference too (as podcasts in 2020!) also relies on a number of loyal sponsors and the delegate fees we collect.

Merf explaining cover crops and catch crops at the LandWISE AGM
Merf explaining cover crops and catch crops at the LandWISE AGM

All these things cost a bundle. If we can get more members, we can increase the amount of work we can self-fund and provide more member services. 

Please consider becoming a Financial Member today. Click the link, fill it in and we’ll flick you an invoice.  (and we’ll cover the cost of our own coffees!)

Agronomy, AgTech, Innovation, Projects, Research, Robotics, Weeds

Novel Technologies for Non-Herbicide Weed Control

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In this podcast LandWISE Manager, Dan Bloomer discusses non-herbicide weed management, some alternative technologies and the amount of energy they may require.

The amount of energy required ranges for some hectares of weeding per litre of diesel, to over 1,000 litres of diesel per hectare. Dan’s current focus is using very targeted, very high voltage but low energy techiques to effect control of ryegrass in cereal crops.

The work reported is part of an MBIE AgResearch project “Managing Herbicide Resistant Weeds”, with Dan’s role being assessing non-chemical techologies including hot water/hot foam, compressed-air abrasion and electric weeding.

Link to the podcast page here>

This podcast was made possible by our sponsors