Project Wrap-up and Trial ResultsCome and see how land shaping rows can be used to minimise rutting in your orchard.
Gisborne, 9th June 2:00 – 4:00pm
Illawarra Orchard, 635 Awapuni Road.
Hastings, 10th June, 1:00 – 2:30pm.
Bostock Red Barn Orchard, 247 Lawn Rd.
Riwaka,14th June,1:00 – 2:30pm
T&G Riwaka Site, 657 Main Rd, Riwaka
**Covered shoes, HiVis, No agrichemicals at Red Barn please**
RSVP info@landwise.org.nz or by text to Luke 022 479 6805
Thanks to everyone who made LandWISE 21 such a successful Conference!
Topics covered:
Jump to the Conference Page for links to presentations
David Manktelow founded Applied Research and Technologies, providing contract and independent research work in horticultural plant protection, pathology and spray application technology.
A life-long innovator, he constantly seeks technologies that do tasks better. Whether simple strips of water sensitive paper or a fast laser scanner, he finds ways to help growers constantly improve practices.
At LandWISE 2021, David described the Green Atlas system of automatic counting and mapping of flowers and fruit in orchards. Together with Fruition Horticulture’s Jack Hughes, David has trialled the Green Atlas system in Hawke’s Bay and displayed the equipment at the field event.
Green Atlas Cartographer is a combination of hardware and software that allows flower and fruit counts to be quickly and accurately mapped over entire orchards. An unprecedented level of detail allows crop management to be tailored to every tree.
Listen to a Summary Sound Clip here:
Matty Blomfield grew up in a small town in New Zealand. He took a chance and moved to Japan at 17, and later New York to broaden his view of the world. When he asked growers and packhouses what their biggest problem was they answered, “How do I know what fruit I have to store/pack/sell?”
Committed to reducing the amount of fruit wasted globally, by giving growers the platform to capture data, analyse their orchard in ways they’ve never done before, and improve the consistency of high quality, safe fruit, Matty co-founded Hectre to provide an orchard management software tool. Their super quick and simple fruit sizing app, Spectre, is an example of the innovation they’re bringing to the fruit industry.
Spectre uses computer vision AI technology to detect fruit size and colour, all from the simple click of an iPad or iPhone. Sample sizes captured by Spectre are 100 times those obtained in traditional sizing practices and accuracy levels are extremely high at 95%+. Results are served up within seconds making Spectre the simplest, fastest and most accurate, portable computer vision fruit sizing tool available on the market.
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.
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!
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.
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!)
In this episode, Georgia talks with talking to Genevieve Griffin-George, founder of PicMi, a digital platform connecting horticultural work with workers.
Genevieve found herself running the family orchard and trying to locate people for her seasonal workforce. Here she discusses 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 and meeting the many aspects of compliance.
Our thanks to our loyal sponsors and to Radio Kidnappers for support with our podcast series.
Calling all followers and friends of LandWISE, we invite you to become a financial member this year.
Your support is vital for LandWISE to continue doing what we do. We rely on farmer support to ensure the backing of new projects, discover new areas for research or technology adoption, and to fund field days, workshops and the development of practical resources.
LandWISE Membership is a great way to support the mission of sustainable production in New Zealand, and as a member you’ll benefit from:
Membership is open to all who are interested in primary production and share our values. We hope you’ll consider becoming a member, or forward this on to a non-member if you already are!
Unable to gather for our popular annual conference in May, but not wanting to you to miss hearing new ideas about sustainable production, we joined the virtual conference crowd.
We are pleased to present “LandWISE: Promoting Sustainable Crop Production” a podcast that will bring the insights of lead researchers, technologists, and farmers to listeners from all over the Ag and Hort industry. Each month has a theme with guests joining on the last Friday of the month as a discussion panel.
This month we’re presenting “Reducing Nitrogen Losses from Intensive Vegetable Cropping” starting with our first guest Jay Clarke, Director of Woodhaven Gardens.
Woodhaven was named the Regional Supreme Winner at the Horizons Ballance Farm Environment Awards in April 2020. We are looking forward to hearing how Jay and the Clarke family have transformed Woodhaven’s growing practices to achieve this outstanding recognition.
JUNE: Reducing Nitrogen Losses from Intensive Vegetable Cropping |
|
| Growers Making Changes (Jay Clarke – Woodhaven Gardens) | Friday 5th June |
| On-Farm Trials with Growers (Luke Posthuma, LandWISE) | Friday 5th June |
| A Grower-Friendly Nutrient Budget Template (Georgia O’Brien– LandWISE) | Friday 12th June |
| Cover and Catch Cropping (Charles Merfield – BHU Future Farming Centre) | Friday 19th June |
| LIVE PANEL DISCUSSION – send in your questions to info@landwise.org.nz | Friday 26th June 1:00 pm |
On the last Friday of the month – look out for our live Panel Discussion where we bring together all of the guests from the show and ask them your questions.
Email us your questions to info@landwise.org.nz
Made possible by our conference sponsors:
The 4th version of the 2019 Future Farming Centre Bulletin is now available, and can be found here. The latest report by Charles Merfield focuses on sustainable vineyard floor management, which is described as the key space where sustainability issues in perennial cropping are all intertwined.
The booklet addresses the opportunities for a sustainable vineyard floor to:
“…many of the sustainability issues facing viticulture, and, indeed all perennial crops, e.g., pipfruit, stone fruit, nuts, vines, bush / cane fruit, come together in a nexus around management of the vineyard / orchard floor as all the issues are all interlinked / intertwined and meet on the vineyard floor. ” (Merfield, 2019).
The Future Farming Centre Bulletin is a free extension newsletter sent out quarterly, see past issues or find out more here and subscribe here.
Referenced
Merfield, C. N. (2019). Vineyard floor management: A sustainability nexus with a focus on undervine weeding. Report number 04-2019. The BHU Future Farming Centre, Lincoln, New Zealand. 51.
http://www.bhu.org.nz/future-farming-centre/ffc/information/bulletin/2018-v4/vineyard-floor-management-a-sustainability-nexus-2019-merfield-ffc.pdf
