Category Archives: Vegetables

Agronomy, AgTech, events, Fertiliser, Nutrients, Projects, Research, Soil, Vegetables

Nitrate Management Demonstrations – Gisborne 4 Feb

We had a good turn out at our Nitrate Quick Test and Alternative Application Technology Demonstrations in Gisborne on  4th February. Many thanks to Calvin Gedye and family for hosting the event.

Intended for Growers, Agronomists, and Fertiliser Reps, it was a chance to show and see some new technologies and talk about trials we are running in Gisborne and Levin. Attendees saw  demonstrations of:

TeeJet fertiliser nozzle on left, Stream Bar on right

Managing plant available nitrogen in soil is critical to ensuring crop yield and quality targets are met, and the risk of losses is minimised. However Nitrate-N, the main source of N available to plants is highly variable spatially and over time. Regular soil testing can help growers make better decisions about fertiliser use. Quick-N tests are affordable, easy to use and can give results in less than half an hour.

Why liquid fertilisers? In order to sidedress N more frequently and match crop demand closely, application needs to be efficient, even and easy. Liquid fertiliser application technology is progressing, and many attachments are now available to fit spray booms, in a variety of different spread patterns. Specialised nozzles do not mist, but apply large droplets that run off leaves and minimise risk of burning.

The dropper systems apply liquid direct to the soil alongside the plants, where root activity is greatest.

Dropper systems apply liquid fertiliser direct to the soil. We are trying various types for different applications such as potatoes or sweetcorn

This workshop was presented as part of our SFF project Future Proofing Vegetable Production.

Agronomy, events, Fertiliser, Nutrients, Projects, Research, Vegetables

Nitrogen Management Field Day – Levin 23 Jan

Many thanks to Woodhaven Gardens for hosting the Nitrogen Management Field Day we ran in Levin with VegetablesNZ. Thanks also to Antony for bringing hard copies of the new good practice guidelines, “Nutrient Management for Vegetable Crops in New Zealand“.  

We began the day with Luke discussing soil sampling strategies to make sure samples are representative. This involves taking at least ten samples, more from large areas, and ensuring samples taken fairly represent the variation across the vegetable bed and across the whole block or paddock.

Luke leads discussion about soil sampling methods to get good results

Georgia presented the Quick Nitrate Test method and the kit that is avaiable to growers. We use the test frequently in our trials and to guide nitrogen fertiliser use at the MicroFarm. We find the shaking of soil in the test-tube is important if reliable results are to be obtained. You must allow the extract solution to access all the soil to release the nitrate.

Georgia presents the Quick Nitrate Test

Woodhaven agronomist, Karen talked about their experiences using the Quick N-Test. They paired the quick test with standard lab testing while they learned how results are affected by soil variations and soil moisture levels. They don’t take the exact quick test result numbers, but use them to guide adjustments to their fertiliser application rates.

We demonstrated three alternative methods for applying liquid fertilisers; TeeJet, Stream Bar and home made Y-Drops. We think liquid fertiliser can offer significant benefits by enabling easier splitting and more accurate applications and reducing the risk of leaching while helping maintain excellent crop nutrition.

Droppers split near ground level and apply streams of liquid fertiliser to the soil beside row crop plants. This type of application is an alternative to banding dry fertilisers

The Y-Drop system is suited to row crops such as corn, broccoli or other brassicas. It drags soft hoses along the plant rows applying a stream to either one or both sides, close to the plant where uptake is most efficient. 

TeeJet nozzles (left) and Stream Bar (right) apply streams of coarse droplets that tend to run of plants and avoid risk of burning foliage. These are alternatives to broadcasting dry fertiliser

The TeeJet and Stream Bar systems replace standard spray nozzles, given a curtain of droplets along the boom. The TeeJet has diverging streams so application spacing can vary if the boom rises or falls. The Stream Bar tends to maintain a more uniform application. These systems are alternatives for crops such as baby leaf, baby beetroot and lettuces where dry fertilisers would be broadcast.

This field day was part of our Future Proofing Vegetable Production project and was held with support of Woodhaven Gardens, Pescini Bros and Vegetables New Zealand along with our major Project Sponsors.

events, Irrigation, Nutrients, Projects, Research, Soil, Vegetables, Water

Efficient Irrigation Workshop – Gisborne 22 Jan

The Efficient Irrigation workshop and IRRIG8 Quick bucket-test field demonstration we ran for Gisborne Irrigation Operators and Crop Managers was well attended. We were pleased to have industry and council staff also attending the day.

The key topics covered included:

  • What is Irrigation Efficiency?
  • Soil Water concepts
  • Testing Irrigation Application using the IRRIG8 bucket test

Many thanks to Leaderbrand for continuing their support for our Gisborne activities and setting up their irrigators for the bucket test demonstration. A great group of staff getting stuck-in and learning as much as possible about good practices.

We started the day with a slide presentation at the Bushmere Arms, discussing the many different definitions of “Irrigation Efficiency”. Efficient Irrigation is a critical input for high-value cropping systems. Getting it right or wrong can make or break crop yields, quality, and nutrient management targets. Dan noted that when most people are talking about efficiency they mean Application Efficiency: how much of the water applied to a field was held in the soil and avilable for plants for growth.

To get high application efficiency, application should be as uniform as practically posssible, and the depth applied should only be enough to refill most of the root depth. Low efficiency means excess water is applied, a sign that leaching risk is increased.

The IRRIG8 Quick calibration methods uses 20-24 9L buckets, spaced across the irrigation application area. Different bucket positions are used depending on the type of irrigation being tested. At this worshop, we tested one of Leaderbrand’s boom irrigators. 

We also demonstrated the IRRIG8Lite software that runs on a PC. This is a free resource from Page Bloomer Associates.  It takes care of all calculations required and produces printable reports including a graph of application depth across the irrigation area.

This Workshop was run with support from Leaderbrand and our project sponsors as part of Future Proofing Vegetable Production

Agronomy, LandWISE People, MicroFarm, Projects, Vegetables, viticulture

Welcome Kazi, our Summer Intern

Kazi Talaska is our summer intern at LandWISE. She is  studying the newly developed Bachelor of Horticulture at Massey University.

Kazi tending vines in our “Inverse Goblet” trial block

Kazi has come from an international background, originally from Bogor in Indonesia, spending her school years there, before deciding on New Zealand for University.

Bogor is just outside Jakarta the capital city, home to the country’s agricultural and fisheries university. Bogor also has the highest annual rainfall in Indonesia.

Kazi chose to study horticulture because:

“I have always had a strong affinity towards the natural environment. After an internship with a local nursery during high school, working with plants became a possibility. After graduating it seemed like the natural path to go to as horticulture itself looked so globally dynamic and interesting to me.”

Kazi’s role with us is to support our significant workload of summer trials in Levin and Gisborne as part of Future Proofing Vegetable Production and our ongoing management of the MicroFarm here in Hawke’s Bay. We are keen to expose her to the variety of work we undertake at LandWISE – from soil sampling and testing for growers, running field days and workshops on sustainable Nitrogen management, sprayer and fertiliser equipment calibrations.

So far Kazi has been busy maintaining our trial blocks – including all the trimming, leaf plucking, and wire tucking in the NanoVineyard. On regular trips  to Levin and Gisborne as part of FPVP, Kazi has assisted the LandWISE team in data collection, and Quick N soil testing in trial plots. She has also been working on the landscaping at the Centre for Land and Water.

“I’ve really enjoyed the grower engagement and field work we’ve been doing – I can grasp the whole system when we are able to listen to growers discuss their problem, and help them find the right solution.”

Kazi says the experience so far has helped her to understand the challenges the Horticulture industry faces, and bring significance to the concepts she’s learning at University.

“I can relate what I’m studying to what is important and potentially achievable for growers”

We look forward to working with Kazi for the rest of the summer, and supporting her to gain valuable skills for her career in the horticulture industry!

Agronomy, Fertiliser, Nutrients, Projects, Soil, Uncategorized, Vegetables

Spring and Summer Trials

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Spring has been a busy season so far for LandWISE staff and our Growers. We have been actively working with 10 growers based in Levin and Gisborne as part of Future Proofing Vegetable Production to test a variety of alternative management practices – particularly around fertiliser planning and application(s).

In Levin, we have 4 trials on Spring Brassicas testing standard grower practice for fertiliser rate and application timings with “Good Practice” prescriptive fertiliser planning based on the Vegetable Guidelines by Morton and Reid (2019). As well as reducing total N rates these trials will also assist growers to use Quick Nitrate Test Strips, and develop their understanding of how Nitrate fluctuates in the soil profile and over the course of a crop growth cycle.

One grower will be hosting several trials on his potato crops in conjunction with a PhD student from Massey University. One of the trials will focus on using liquid dribble bar applicators fitted to a spray boom to apply nitrogen fertiliser as split side-dressings. Another trial will look into the potential for biological products to improve the mineral N supply from soil to the crop. The overall aim with this work is to reduce the risk of N leaching by minimising the amount of available N, particularly nitrate, that is in the soil profile at any one time, and at risk of loss.

Several trials are planned in sweetcorn, the first of which will investigate the potential for current rotations to provide adequate soil nitrogen with reduced rsates of N applied at side dressings. At present one of our Gisborne growers is growing sweetcorn following winter cover crops and peas in spring. They want to know if the sweetcorn crop yield could be maintained or improved with reduced fertiliser N additions due to the previous crops which already provide improved soil structure and organic matter.

Another sweetcorn trial in Gisborne will focus on Phosphate in starter fertilisers. At present most growers in the area are using P in their starter fert blend, despite having optimum or above optimum Olsen P values in the soil. This trial will test the impact of removing P from starter fertiliser, on a high fertility soil whilst maintaining other key inputs (e.g. sulfur, nitrogen).

Finally, in a tomatoes crop LandWISE will assist another grower to test their current starter fertiliser rate against reduced rates (which are more in line with recommended inputs). Several more trials are still being finalised, and we will keep you updated as we confirm their designs. It’s set to be a busy summer!

 

Whilst it might seem straightforward to many of you that vegetable growers should be applying the recommended rates, and creating a fertiliser plan that achieves optimum crop yield and minimises nutrient loss risk – there is often a huge amount of risk associated with these systems.

Many of the growers we work with cite crop quality, unpredictable weather events, and processing/retailer contracts as major constraints to adopting sustainable practices around minimising nutrient loss. Not to mention until February of this year, the most recent soil nutrition guidelines for vegetables in New Zealand were published in the 1980s.

A lot has changed since then, and environmental compliance is now a top priority for our growers to remain farming in their catchments. That is why LandWISE through FPVP is proud to support growers test and accurately measure the impacts of alternative management practices on a small scale through on-farm trials. We are passionate about helping growers achieve economic and environmental sustainability in their businesses.

If you are keen to learn more about any of these trials please contact Luke Posthuma (Precision Agronomist).

Agronomy, Controlled Traffic Systems, Fertiliser, Nutrients, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Soil, Vegetables

Digging Holes: An Intro to Soil Assessment at Leaderbrand

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LandWISE visited Leaderbrand Gisborne earlier this week, where Nick Pollock, one of the Farm Production Managers there had invited us to hold a VSA, Fertiliser Equipment Calibration, and Quick N-Test Field Day. Nick ensured his tractor operators and crop managers were up to speed with good practice by encouraging them to take part in the day’s activities and share their experiences making day-to-day on-farm decisions regarding cultivation and fertiliser application.

Starting off the day with a fertiliser calibration, we were pleased to see the strong understanding of how to run a calibration test by their staff, and the use of practical charts to help drivers choose the right speed and revs for the field they’re working in and fertiliser product they’re applying.

Salad crops are a significant part of Leaderbrand’s production, and to accommodate this unique growing method, where planting densities are high, and crop maturity is reached in as little as 60 days, they have adopted new fertiliser application technologies which minimise waste. Calibration of these systems is especially critical to ensure uniformity of crop establishment during the short growing period and maximise the crop’s nutrient use efficiency. Using our calibration tool FertPlace, we were able to identify the application uniformity across the bed and calculate the application rate at a standard speed.

Visual Soil Assessment (VSA) – the process of assessing soil quality by eye and feel was developed by the soil scientist Graham Shepherd and has been around for a while (the first edition of the Visual Soil Assessment Field Guide was published in 2009).

Demonstrating this process in a nearby paddock, where Leaderbrand has been following controlled traffic systems for the past 5 years, showed some surprising results. The soil structure of the cultivated bed had significantly better porosity, stability of aggregates, and drainage characteristics when compared with the compacted “road” soil in the wheel tracks. The side-by-side comparison of the soil from the cultivated beds and a long term pasture soil from under a fence line in the same paddock showed that even a heavy Makauri Clay Loam soil can score well on the VSA when treated with care as Leaderbrand have committed to by adopting Controlled Traffic Farming.

Following this first look at soil characteristics under cropping, we visited a recently disestablished vineyard that is being leased by Leaderbrand for cropping in-between developments. The short break in production had allowed them to dig an impressive viewing hole that demonstrated the variability in soil structure, texture, and organic matter at different depths in the profile. As seen in the figure below, the Waipaoa Silt Loam profile has a buried topsoil (Matawhero Silt Loam) at 40cm depth, remaining from before the 1948 flood of the Waipaoa River.

To finish off the field day, a demonstration of soil sampling and using Quick-Nitrate Test Strips was completed for a Leaderbrand lettuce crop.

As part of FPVP, LandWISE is helping growers to adopt this tool as an in-field method to determine the soil supply of N during the growing season. More information about this test process and the proof of concept research, led by Plant and Food Scientist Matt Norris can be found here.

For those already using Nitrate Test Strips, the Quick Test Nitrate Mass Balance Tool which converts the Nitrate Test Strip results from ppm into a kg/ha Nitrate-N value can be found on the FAR website.

Our acknowledgement and thanks go to Leaderbrand Gisborne for supplying us with equipment to test, and setting aside their time to take part. We also gratefully acknowledge MPI’s Sustainable Farming Fund, and the co-funders of the Future Proofing Vegetable Production project for making field days such as this one possible.

 

Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Data Analytics, Fertiliser, Innovation, Irrigation, LandWISE People, Membership, MicroFarm, New Crops, Nutrients, Orchard, Plant Health, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Robotics, Sensing, Soil, Tillage, Vegetables, viticulture, Water, Weeds

Help Wanted

We’re not quite sure what to call the job: science manager, extensionist, project manager, consultant? We know it offers diverse activities and needs excellent communication skills and practical knowledge of horticulture and technology.

We are looking for someone to help identify and lead research projects and extension activities across a variety of issues and regions. For the right person, this is a role with considerable potential to grow.

This will be a Page Bloomer Associates appointment. They provide our science, management and support services while having addditional private consultancy activities.  Working closely together, we know they share our passion for sustainable land and water management.

Since the dawn of the new millennium we’ve been providing progressive, pragmatic and independent services through projects and consultancy. A key feature of our work is close collaboration with end users, researchers and developers. We talk about “linking thinking from the farm out”.

The role includes engaging with growers, industry and researchers to identify opportunities to review practices and integrate new technologies to create sustainable cropping systems. The appointee will develop and manage projects and support services that support economically and environmentally sustainable primary production.

If you know someone with passion for smarter farming who wants a key role in a small dedicated organisation, Page Bloomer Associates would like to chat with them!

More Info on TradeMe Jobs

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Drainage, events, Fertiliser, Nutrients, Orchard, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Soil, Vegetables, Weeds

LandWISE 2019: Rethinking Best Practice

22-23 May 2019
Havelock North

Do we really know why we farm as we do? Or are we constrained in ways we just don’t see?

Often our current practices have evolved over a very long time – thousands of years of human history, decades of technology developments. Remember the space shuttle and the horse’s rear? We’ve long forgotten some of the reasons behind what we do, so maybe it is time for a reset!

LandWISE was awarded four significant new projects that started in 2018. They cover enhanced GPS, precision drainage for orchards, nitrates in fresh vegetable production and herbicide resistance management. They’ll be among the topics discussed at LandWISE 2019.

LandWISE 2019 Platinum Sponsors

LandWISE 2019 Gold Sponsors

Thank you to our other sponsors…

Agronomy, Conference, New Crops, Research, Vegetables

LandWISE 2019: Kiwi Quinoa

Growing the Andean Superfood here in New Zealand

  

Eight years ago, Dan and Jacqui Cottrell set off on their Overseas Experience – it was in South America that they encountered the high protein superfood staple of the Andean people, quinoa, and considered “Could quinoa be grown back at home on the Cottrell family farm?”

Fast forward to now and Dan and Jacqui have recently harvested their fourth and largest quinoa crop on their cool climate sheep and beef property on the Taihape-Napier Road, just out of Moawhango in the Central Plateau.

Quinoa is a high protein seed with an impressive nutritional offering, so much so that NASA stated “while no single food contains all the nutrients necessary to live, quinoa comes as close as any” and have included it in their long term space travel.

After a lot of research, communication with international quinoa producers and a variety trial – the couple identified a particular saponin-free variety of quinoa that really suited their cool climate and short growing season. 

Through many years of trial and error, Dan and Jacqui have ironed out a growing practice that suits their quinoa and their wider farming operation.  Kiwi Quinoa is grown without the use of herbicides or pesticides.  Their quinoa is grown as part of pasture renewal program and permanent pasture is planted shortly after the crop is harvested in February.

With a shift in consumer attitudes around food choices – the demand for sustainably produced, plant based proteins is on the rise.  Recent studies in the US have shown that consumption of alternative proteins, like quinoa and other plant proteins, is growing at a rate of 4-10 times faster than conventional proteins.

Jacqui and Dan remain very supportive of traditional proteins, but also see tremendous opportunity for New Zealand agriculture in not only the plant protein space but with a shift into more regenerative ways of farming our land.

Want to know more?

REGISTER HERE FOR LandWISE 2019!

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Plant Health, Uncategorized, Vegetables, viticulture, Weeds

LandWISE 2019: Frank Forcella

Abrasive Weeding: A New Tool for Weed Management

Frank Forcella

Frank Forcella is Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota where his research involves ecology, modeling, and management of weeds in crops. Frank has special focus on weed dormancy, germination and emergence, early seedling growth and seed production.

We invited Frank to LandWISE 2019 because, as well as an impressive weed research history, he investigates and shows how conventional and modern weed management tools can turn theory into practice and he has a drive to transfer this technology to appropriate user groups.

Our new involvement in a major AgResearch led project “Managing Herbicide Resistant Weeds” includes assessing non-chemical methods of weed control. Frank and his colleagues and research students have considerable experience in these aspects, particularly in using air-blasted farm-sourced grits to abrade weeds.

A weed abrasion system developed for field scale application of abrasion for weed control (Frank Forcella image)

As well as presenting at the LandWISE conference, Frank will be an active participant in the Friday Special Technical Session “New Strategies to Manage Weeds”.