Category Archives: Weeds

Conference, Uncategorized, Weeds

LandWISE 2019: Focus on Weed Management

OZ440 from Naio Technologies. An example of alternative, non-herbicide weed management

The 2019 Conference covers, as always, a range of topics. Here, we take a look at weeds: the speakers, the topics, the demonstrations and the opportunities.

We are part of a large, five year Ag Research programme addressing herbicide resistance in weeds. Programme Leader, Trevor James is well known to the LandWISE community having supported our efforts since the beginning. He first put together the LandWISE “Avoiding Herbicide Resistance” chart when we were investigating reduced tillage systems in the early 2000s.

At LandWISE 2019, Trevor will introduce the project and its four workstreams: Anticipating herbicide resistance, Drivers of decision making to change practice, Quick tests for identifying resistance and Managing herbicide resistant weeds and controlling their spread.

Andrew Griffiths, also from AgResearch, will explain his team’s research looking for genetic markers to enable quick tests for resistance. At present, seeds have to be collected, new lines grown and plants exposed to increasing rates of chemical – a process that takes a long time. Success by Andrew’s team will offer a much quicker turn-around and reduce the cost of testing.

Frank Forcella, one of our overseas guest presenters, investigates and shows how conventional and modern weed management tools can turn theory into practice. From the University of Minnesota, Frank is part of the AgResearch project team. At our conference he will talk about using air-blasted farm-sourced grits to abrade weeds.

Also well known to LandWISE members is Charles “Merf” Merfield, a non-herbicide weed management researcher and practitioner from the Future Farming Centre in Canterbury. Currently undertaking an electric weeder development project, at LandWISE 2019 Merf will address electrical and thermal weeding technologies.

The Conference Practical Session also has a weed management section with a number of demonstrations. Look for row alignment technologies from Inta-Ag and Tulloch Farm Machines, Hot Foam from Weeding Tech and Farnk Forcella’s abrasion technologies from the University of Minnesota.

Note also, the Special Technical Session for lead farmers, researchers and technologists on Friday 24th after the Conference. This by-application event, “New Strategies to Manage Weeds”, will build on the ideas discussed at the Conference.

If you would like to join a small group of lead farmers, researchers and tech developers to discuss this topic, debate alternatives and explore opportunties for collaboration Click here to apply!

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”.

Agronomy, Projects, Research, Weeds

Herbicide Resistance

Herbicide resistant weeds are a real and increasing issue globally and evident in New Zealand. Herbicide resistant ryegrass is for example, a problem in both arable farms and vineyards.

Atrazine resistant Amaranthus (Trevor James photo)

We are working with Trevor James and AgResearch in a project focused on improved weed control and vegetation management to minimise future herbicide resistance. The project is funded through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and major co-funder, the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR).

The project has four main work areas:

A Lincoln University team is seeking to identify the weeds most likely to develop herbicide resistance in new regions. Outputs will be a risk index that indicates weeds with a history of herbicide resistance, herbicide resistant weeds that pose the greatest risk if introduced and weeds that have a high likelihood of becoming resistant.

An AgResearch team seeks to identify and describe the drivers of on- and off-farm herbicide practices to more successfully address factors across the supply/value chain that increase the risk of herbicide resistance.

Grasslands and Massey University researchers will develop genotyping and seed bioassays to create ‘quick tests’ for resistance in key weed species. They will also model spread scenarios for resistance genes to determine the greatest risk of resistance i.e. from resistance developing on-site or from dispersal of resistant weeds. They are starting with perennial ryegrass before adding other species for screening.

We are in a team led by Trevor James looking to develop new non-herbicidal interventions (e.g. robotic weeders, abrasion technologies and smart cultivators) and the use of cover crops (in collaboration with FAR) for both managing existing and avoiding new instances of herbicide resistance.

Included in this section is ‘rediscovering’ Māori management practices such as traditional strategic resting and natural pathogenic organisms to target the soil weed seed bank. While virtually all our problem weeds are introduced from Europe and the Americas, the holistic approaches typical in Māoridom seem fully relevant to a systems based approach to weed management. A second group in this team is to isolate and evaluate natural pathogenic fungi and bacteria for their ability and efficacy to kill weed seeds.

LandWISE members are well-aware of the risks of herbicide resistance. It has been an aspect of LandWISE projects since the early 2000s when we began promoting strip tillage and no-till systems to maintain soil quality and reduce energy inputs. The extra pressure on herbicide controls when physical cultivation is reduced saw us publish charts of herbicide groups for different crops. Maybe it is time that work was brought up to date!

More information about this project is available on our project pages here>

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

LandWISE 2018 Conference Speakers

We are absolutely delighted at the calibre of speakers coming together for LandWISE 2018 – Technologies for Timely Actions. They have a wide range of backgrounds, work in a range of different sectors looking at a wide range of different things. 

We’ve put information about the speakers on our discussion (blog) posts. Here, they are presented as a list with links so you can follow as you please.

We are grateful for the support of AGMARDT, McCain Foods and Heinz-Watties for helping bring our international speakers to New Zealand.

Invited Overseas Speakers

Dan Drost – Utah State University, USA

Will Bignell – DroneAg, Tasmania

Michael Nichols – Redbank Farming, Tasmania

Sarah Pethybridge – Cornell University, USA

Invited Local Speakers

Dan Bloomer – LandWISE

Tim Herman – NZ Apples and Pears

Wade Riley – GPS Control Systems

Mark Bart – Metris

Dan Clark – Eagle Technologies

Bruce Searle – Plant & Food Research

Matt Norris – Plant & Food Research

Aldrin Rivas – Lincoln AgriTech

Taylor Welsh – Plant & Food

Matthew Warner and Nicholas Woon – Acuris Systems

Matty Blomfield – Hectre

Armin Werner – Lincoln AgriTech

Shane Wood – Vinea

 

 

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, Weeds

Electric Weeding Demonstrations

In conjunction with Kazel Cass at Hotgrass, we have some electric weeding demonstrations. So if you’re interested in non-herbicide non-mechanical weeding, get along for a personal encounter.

Next opportunity – Franklin

When: Tuesday 16th January 2018, 13:00 to 15:00
Where: A.S. Wilcox SFF trial site, Highway 22, Pukekawa

(1km past GAS Pukekawa, gate on right)

General enquiries:
Kazel Cass (Kazel@hotgrass.co.nz or 021 033 2428)

Hotgrass uses the RootWaveTM Pro Electrothermal Weeder technology designed and manufactured by RootWave in the UK. They suggest this is:

  •  Sustainable, using a generator it uses a fraction of fuel required for thermal (steam, hot water) weed control.
  • Organic, the only input is electricity.  No need to carry tonnes of water, or toxic agri-chemicals
  • Effective, trials in the UK show it is effective against some of the toughest weeds because it gets down to the root of the problem.  It is able to control weeds that are resistant to herbicides
  • Manoeuvrable, because the device has a small footprint, and doesn’t require any water, it can be loaded onto small utility vehicles

Charles Merfield, head of the BHU Future Farming Centre, has reviewed electric weeding. His very detailed review is here. Worth your time reading too.

Agronomy, AgTech, Projects, Research, Weeds

Field Scale Electric Weeder Consortium

Do you have an interest in field scale electrothermal weeders and being part of a project to make that happen?

Charles Merfield is leading a proposal to develop equipment in conjunction with Ubiqutek,  a UK company who originally designed electric weeders and have weeders in use in the UK and HotGrass, the NZ agent. 

The current commercial machines are ‘only’ hand held weeders aimed at the urban weed control market, e.g., councils, and their contractors.  However, the handheld machines can clearly demonstrate the potential of electrothermal, and Kazel Cass of Hotgrass, is doing a series of demonstrations around the country which you may be interested in attending.

If you would like more information about electrothermal weeders have a look at the FFC Bulletin article.

In any normal situation, Ubiqutek and Hotgrass as the owners / suppliers of the weeders would be developing field weeders themselves, however, both are very small business startups with limited funding and people resources, so they are unable to start work on a field machines for several years.  They also lack expertise in what is required from field machines especially for the different sectors, e.g., pasture, cropping, viticulture and other permanent crops, and therefore how to design them. 

The aim of Charles Merfield’s project is to accelerate the development of a field scale weeder so that NZ farmers & growers get access much sooner. To do this he is seeking farmers and growers who are interested in the technology and willing to contribute some funding. 

For more details, contact Dan at LandWISE or Charles Merfield at the Future Farming Centre.

 

Agronomy, events, Weeds

Sustainable Weed Management Workshop

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Approaches to the non-chemical / sustainable management of weeds

Full House at Weed Control Workshop.

With the increasing and well know issues surrounding herbicides, such as resistant weeds, ‘resistant’ consumers and increased regulation, non-chemical/herbicide weed management is becoming increasingly important. 

Growers are well aware of the limitations of current weed management tools and practices. They recognise simple chemical solutions are increasingly limited and more sophisticated management is essential.

In response to this need, the BHU Future Farming Centre, NZ’s leading specialist sustainable agriculture research centre, and LandWISE with its focus on sustainable production through technology ran a non-chemical weed management workshop to give attendees the knowledge and tools they need to make significant enhancements to the long-term sustainability of their on-farm weed management practices. 

Topics covered included the context of weed management, essential weed biology and ecology, integrated weed management plus detailed coverage of field operations and machinery.   Full information can be found at www.bhu.org.nz/future-farming-centre/events/one-day-seminar-workshop-on-non-chemical-weed-management. 

Dr Charles Merfield, Head of the Future Farming Centre, said “the aim of this practically focused course was to give attendees a sound overview of the whole of non-chemical weed management as well as providing practical details about how to implement the ideas once they get back to the farm.” 

The feedback from attendees was very positive and we anticipate running this again next winter. We already have a wait list so contact us if you are keen info@landwise.org.nz

Download pdf here>

For further information please contact:

Dr Charles Merfield
Head, BHU Future Farming Centre
021 0231 8901
charles.merfield@bhu.org.nz		 Dan Bloomer
LandWISE Manager
021 356 801
dan@landwise.org.nz