Category Archives: Soil

Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Conference, Data Analytics, Drainage, events, Membership, MicroFarm, Nutrients, Orcharding, Plant Health, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Robotics, Sensing, Soil, viticulture

LandWISE 2018 Conference Sponsors

We are delighted to present our 2018 Platinum Sponsors, BASF Crop Protection, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and Power Farming.

BASF Crop Protection and  Hawke’s Bay Regional Council are long term loyal supporters of LandWISE and their contributions are highly valued. Power Farming is a new Platinum Sponsor in 2018 and we look forward to our relationship with them. AGMARDT sponsored our international speakers.

 Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has been part of LandWISE since 1999, when some farmers, scientists and industry people got together to try and improve soil quality, stop wind erosion and improve irrigation efficiency and of course yields. Our Mission doesn’t change so much, but the tools to help us along the way certainly have!

BASF Crop Protection has been a foundation sponsor of the LandWISE MicroFarm as well as our annual conferences.  They show ongoing enthusiasm to help us help farmers and that is greatly appreciated.

Our new Platinum Sponsor is Power Farming. We’ve had help from them in several of our projects, most recently with the Canterbury field work and field events that were part of our FAR/SFF Fertiliser Spreader Calibration project.  The Power Farming catalogue matches well with our conference delegates’ and members’ interests.

We are grateful to our long-term Gold Sponsors, Horizons Regional Council, Process Vegetables NZ and Vegetables NZ, and AGMARDT.

Horizons Regional Council has supported our conference field sessions for a number of years and is a key partner for some of our major research and extension projects including “Integrated Storm Water Management” and “Holding it Together“.

AGMARDT has funded travel expenses to bring many international speakers to our Annual Conferences, as well as several projects including “Soils First Farmers” and “Validating Field Robotics“.

Process Vegetables NZ and Vegetables NZ have been conference sponsors for many years. As the levy funded industry research bodies they represent the farmers in our membership and nationally. These bodies also co-fund research projects including a number of our Sustainable Farming Fund initiatives.

Our conference delegates are well supported by our meal sponsors and trade displays. In addition, Apatu Farms sponsor high school students to attend, and McCain Foods and Heinz-Wattie’s are sponsoring keynote Sarah Pethybridge‘s travel.  Thanks everyone!

 

AgTech, Conference, Drainage, LandWISE People, Orcharding, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Soil

Tim Herman

Tim Herman is Technical Manager – Crop Production at New Zealand Apples & Pears Inc. which he joined in 2013.

His role includes managing the R&D portfolio for the industry and ensuring the outcomes from it are integrated into commercial crop management programmes.

Tim has a strong track record as a technical researcher and advisor in crown research and in industry. LandWISE first worked with Tim to understand slug migration patterns in no-till and strip-till cropping paddocks.

In his LandWISE 2018 presentation, Tim will introduce  “Smart tools to improve orchard drainage“.  This is a new MPI Sustainable Farming Fund project, in which LandWISE is partnering with NZAPI to investigate high precision drainage in existing orchards.

Severe wheel ruts are common especially in wetter seasons. The immediate problem of tractor access for bin shifting is compounded by poor conditions for pickers and the less obvious impact of fruit rots increase. In more severe cases the ruts greatly increase picking costs as the use of mobile hydraulic picking ladders is made difficult, unsafe or impossible. In some cases, harvest costs are reported to have doubled. 

Despite numerous attempts to rectify puddles and mud, the problem remains. The project will adapt and pilot use of precision technologies to survey, design and implement surface drainage plans that minimise ponding risk and reduce these negative impacts.

These will be supported by guidelines for wheel track management to provide a secure base for harvest traffic. This will become even more critical as the industry  automation with picking platforms and robotic harvesters.

 

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

AgTech, Conference, Drainage, LandWISE People, Nutrients, Soil, Water

Aldrin Rivas

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Aldrin Rivas is a Catchment Hydrologist at Lincoln Agritech. He has over ten years of professional experience in the fields of water and environmental science, engineering, and management; and has worked for private and government entities.

Aldrin has experience in denitrification in natural and engineered systems and will tell delegates at LandWISE 2018 about a Lincoln Agritech, ESR and Aqualinc project investigating woodchip bioreactors to remove nitrate from drainage water. Some say this is closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Others say it’s catching the horse and putting it somewhere safe!

With a mixed background in engineering and science, Aldrin is involved in a variety of Lincoln Agritech projects including the Ground Water Mitigations project and the Transfer Pathways Programme.

His interests include:
• Groundwater
• Denitrification in the vadose and saturated zones
• Vulnerability assessment of freshwater resources
• Integrated catchment development and management
• Water supply systems and management
• Environmental and hydrological modelling

You can hear and discuss this with Aldrin at LandWISE 2018 in Havelock North on 23-24 May.

Conference, LandWISE People, Nutrients, Research, Soil

Matthew Norris

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Matt Norris is a research associate at Plant and Food Research within the Sustainable Production (Field Crops) team in the Hawke’s Bay. 

Matt has a background in soil science and chemistry and a keen interest in sustainable nutrient management including modelling nutrient losses from arable and vegetable production systems.

Matt is responsible for leading and managing a range of environmentally focused research projects. His primary focus areas relate to nutrient management, specifically quantifying N and P losses from arable and vegetable production systems. Additional areas of research include N mineralisation dynamics from dairy effluent amended soils and developing novel soil testing approaches for informing N management decisions.

Matt will present both a talk and a practical demonstration on  a Quick Test for Nitrate, a way to rapidly determine how much available nitrogen is in the soil for crops to access. LandWISE and Plant & Food used this in our Onions NZ /SFF research this season to determine how much fertiliser we might apply when we had areas with different size canopies.

You can hear and discuss this with Matt at LandWISE 2018 in Havelock North on 23-24 May.

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, 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, Conference, Drainage, LandWISE People, MicroFarm, Nutrients, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Sensing, Soil

LandWISE 2017: Are we ready for automation?

In 2017 our 15th Annual Conference focuses on automated tools for data collection, decision making and doing actual tasks on the farm (and beyond).

  • What do you want?
  • What’s on offer?
  • How will farms and management have to change?

We have a comprehensive programme. We’ve gone a bit outside the box to bring a variety including from outside the horticultural and arable sectors. We find cross-pollination and hybrid vigour valuable!

So register, come along and listen to excellent presenters, discuss the ideas with colleagues and go away with new understanding and plans.

Thanks to Our Loyal Platinum Sponsors!
Many thanks to AGMARDT, sponsors of our international presenter, Thibault Delcroix, France

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, John Deere and BASF Crop Protection are our Platinum Sponsors again in 2017. Many thanks to these loyal supporters who have backed the Conference for a number of years.

We also welcome our Gold Sponsors, meal sponsors and  trade displays new and old. These are the organisations that make conferences like this possible and affordable.

Join them and us at the Havelock North Function Centre on 24-25 May 2017 to mix with leading practitioners, farmers, growers, researchers, technology developers and providers.

Register now – click here!

 

AgTech, Conference, Precision Agriculture, Sensing, Soil

MicroFarm pH Mapping

GrowMaps’ pH testing equipment at a Papakura trial site

GrowMaps this week completed the first comprehensive soil pH mapping at the MicroFarm. GrowMaps will have a trade display at the LandWISE 2017 Conference and will be taking part in the Horizons Regional Council field session at the Centre for Land and Water.

GrowMaps principal Luke Posthuma completed the survey, and says his observations as the survey progressed suggest there is a reasonable spread of pH across our relatively small area.

As well as Veris sampling, Luke took a number of soil samples for verification and calibration checks.

The Veris equipment also maps soil electrical conductivity (EC) down to 60cm. Soil EC is a measurement of how much electrical current soil can conduct. It is often an effective way to map soil texture because smaller soil particles such as clay conduct more current than larger silt and sand particles.

Part of the Veris pH mapping is post-survey processing to create the most reliable result. We await the processed maps with considerable interest.

We previously had a similar soil conductivity map provided by AgriOptics and it will be interesting to compare the results.