Category Archives: viticulture

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Data Analytics, Fertiliser, Innovation, New Crops, Nutrients, Orchard, Orcharding, Plant Health, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Robotics, Sensing, Soil, Vegetables, viticulture, Water, Weeds

LandWISE 2021: Working Smarter

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Havelock North, 19-20 May 2021

Thanks to everyone who made LandWISE 21 such a successful Conference!

We were a touch nervous after Covid-cancelling last year, but so heartened when our sponsors jumped on-board, and delgetaes began registering earlier than usual. Perhaps there was a vacuum . . .
The speakers’ presentations are summarised in a series of blog posts, many with a short sound clip. The time put in to create the presentations is clearly huge, it is a very large gift each one makes. Thanks each and every one of you!

Topics covered:

  • Best Practice and Beyond
  • Future Proofing Vegetable Production
  • Carbon and Water
  • Smart Technologies for Permanent Crops
  • Herbicide Resistance Management
  • Agritech in NZ and Hawke’s Bay

Jump to the Conference Page for links to presentations

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, Cover crops, Fertiliser, Nutrients, Plant Health, Soil, Vegetables, viticulture, Water

The Role of Soil Microbes in Soil Plant Interactions

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Our latest podcast is now online. Phillip Schofield talks with Georgia about the role microbes play in soil plant interactions, the use of Visual Soil Assessment (VSA) and practical ways to improve soil health on-farm.

Phillip is a soil nutrition consultant based in Hawke’s Bay. He has a PhD in Plant Science from Massey University where he studied autotoxins, herbicide residues and pathogenic fungi in asparagus crops. He has many years’ experience in soil conservation, and nutrient management in the Hawke’s Bay area.

Our thanks to our loyal sponsors and to Radio Kidnappers for support with our podcast series.

Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Conference, Controlled Traffic Systems, Data Analytics, Drainage, events, Fertiliser, Innovation, Irrigation, LandWISE 2015, LandWISE People, Membership, MicroFarm, New Crops, Nutrients, Orchard, Orcharding, Plant Health, Planting, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Robotics, Sensing, Soil, Tillage, Uncategorized, Vegetables, viticulture, Water, Weeds

Memberships Open for 2020-2021

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:

  • Results from on-farm trials
  • Projects focussed on real farmer and grower problems
  • Regional field days and workshops on a range of topics from conserving soil to nutrient management and novel fertiliser technology
  • A discounted registration at the 2021 LandWISE Conference
  • Subscription to our annual LandWISE News publication

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!

Sign up here >

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!

Nutrients, Orchard, Orcharding, Soil, Uncategorized, viticulture, Weeds

Sustainable Vineyard/Orchard Floor Management – FFC Bulletin

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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:

  • Replacing herbicide strips / bare undervine soil for weed management / crop competition with a living mulch of growing plants;
  • Replace synthetic nitrogen fertilisers through legumes;
  • Improve soil health and minimise erosion
  • Sequester atmospheric carbon;
  • Increase biodiversity and;
  • Conservation biocontrol of vineyard pests & diseases.

“…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

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

Conference, Innovation, LandWISE People, viticulture

LandWISE 2019: The Vineyard of Tomorrow

John van der Linden  – LandWISE Board Member

Epitomising this years theme of “Rethinking Best Practice” John van der Linden from Villa Maria Estate discussed the “Future Vineyard”

Future Vineyard – Inverse Goblet

Often people’s future thinking is constrained by their past practises and experiences and so many ‘innovations’ are often only ‘improved ways of doing the same thing’. Two main considerations went into designing the vineyard of tomorrow:

  1. How to use land more effectively (more high quality grapes/ha)
  2. How to grow grapes more efficiently (eliminating, minimising, or combining operations)

Some solutions in this space that Villa Maria is trialling include:

  • “Trunk-Wrapping”: eliminates disbudding, or avoiding disbudding altogether and combining it with pruning.
  • “Sustainable Vineyard Floors”: eliminating or at least drastically reducing the numerous weed control and mowing passes by using different inter-row species and management techniques.
  • “Inverse Goblet” style vines: growing staked vines in an isometric pattern can provide advantages over current planting arrangements (parallel rows)

John van der Linden is a Viticulturist with Villa Maria Estate, NZ’s most awarded wine company. He has developed a wealth of viticultural experience and knowledge having grown up on a vineyard, owned and managed his own vineyards, studied and lectured in Viticulture and worked as a Viticulturist in Hawkes Bay and Marlborough for some major NZ wine companies.  One of John’s philosophies is that ‘there is always a better way’ and so innovation, sustainability and continuous improvement play a big part in his role.

John’s interests include family, rowing, cycling, swimming, guitar, Hi-Fi, technology, flying, design & architecture.

 

 

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”.