AgTech, Conference, Data Analytics, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture

Shane Wood

A LandWISE 2018 invited speaker, Shane Wood’s topic is “Information from grapevine to desk for timely decision making”. He will explain how apps and cloud systems can replace bits of paper and get information where it is needed in the most timely fashion.

Shane has always been passionate about harnessing the power of data to produce powerful information for better business insights.  For over 25 years his company, Information Power, has delivered software solutions for Healthcare, Education and Emergency Management sectors.

Information Power launched Vinea five years ago to provide growers in the Viticulture and Horticulture industry with software that dramatically simplifies the collection and management of data associated with resources (labour, equipment and consumables), crop measurements (qualitative and quantitative) and environment. In the last year processed over 3 million transactions through the Vinea Cloud saving growers time, eliminating paper and delivering new insights.

Aside from being a statistician and data scientist, Shane is also passionate about Argentine Tango and is preparing for LandWISE 2018 by spending two weeks dancing in Buenos Aires.

 

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, LandWISE People, Plant Health, Precision Agriculture, Research, Sensing

Sarah Pethybridge

Assistant Prof Sarah Pethybridge‘s career spans from Tasmania, through Plant & Food Research in New Zealand to Cornell University in New York. She has a focus on vegetable disease management, and a goal to provide reliable information to vegetable growers and industry stakeholders to encourage adoption of durable management strategies and tactics.

A LandWISE keynote presenter, she described leading techniques and technologies to help optimise control tools and reduce the frequency of false positive or negative decisions.

Sarah told us, “We are now in the second year of our project with the center for imaging science at Rochester Institute of Technology looking at hyperspectral data to detect flowering in snap bean to optimize timing of fungicides, and using canopy density as a risk factor. We are also expanding this work into beets to detect and differentiate abiotic and biotic stress. In the digital agriculture arena, we recently released three apps on disease detection, quantification, and spatial analysis of epidemics using pixelated data.”

Sarah’s travel to New Zealand is supported by Cornell University,  McCain Foods, Heinz-Wattie and AGMARDT

 

              

Many thanks to AGMARDT, sponsors of our international presenters 

 

AgTech, Automation, Conference, Data Analytics, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture, Robotics, Sensing

Nicholas Woon and Matthew Warner

Nick Woon and Matt Warner co-founded Acuris Systems in 2016.

Acuris Systems is developing orchard management systems that provide robotics, data capture and analytics for kiwifruit growers, to detect disease, forecast yield and increase grower knowledge of their orchard and its variability.

Nick and Matt are presenting at LandWISE 2018 on the topic, “A robotic platform for canopy monitoring“.

Nick says, “At the moment we are focusing on accurate fruit counting using photogrammetry and neural networks. Utilising the recent advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, we aim to analyse crop, detect disease and forecast yield. Beyond just analysis we want to develop a solution that will robotically automate the kiwifruit growing processes, including the culling of flowers, spraying of pesticide and picking of the fruit itself.”

The Acuris robot is a smaller, three wheeled machine designed to carry cameras and other sensors around kiwifruit orchards.

For something a bit different, check out K9 the walking quadruped, one of Matt’s earlier prototype robots. 

You can meet Nick and Matt at LandWISE 2018: Technologies for Timely Actions, 23-24 May 2018 in Havelock North

AgTech, Automation, Conference, Data Analytics, LandWISE People, Sensing

Mark Bart

Metris Principal, Mark Bart, is an atmospheric scientist with deep interest in air quality and weather forecasting. With long experience in atmospheric measurement including cloud physics, atmospheric chemistry, meteorology and atmospheric dynamics he knows how important sensors, sensor maintenance and data quality are if you want to make good decisions.

At LandWISE 2018, Mark and University of Auckland colleague Kevin Wang will talk about maintaining data quality in field sensor networks – those much talked about hundreds, thousands and many thousands of gadgets that are going to be sending massive amounts of data from our farms and orchards through the Internet of Things (IoT).

Sensors and the Internet of Things (IoT) offer timely decision making around disease modelling, spray-application, irrigation control and frost-fighting.

Mark says, “If we are going to make decisions on the basis of data, an important question is: ‘How good are the data?’ This question need to be answered in a reliable and timely manner so that the correct decisions around crop management and sensor servicing can be made, and that the chance of bad decisions are less likely to occur.  Our experience shows that as the cost of the sensors comes down, the cost of managing the sensor network and keeping it calibrated goes up.”

Come to listen and discuss sensors and quality of data with him at LandWISE 2018: Technologies for Timely Actions.

AgTech, Automation, Conference, Data Analytics, events, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture, Research

Matty Blomfield

Matty Blomfield co-founded Hectre, a company developing and offering orchard management software.

From launch, Hectre  expanded to NZ and Australia and helped track over 50,000,000 apples in its first 10 weeks of operation.

A LandWISE 2018 invited speaker, Matty’s topic is “Understanding the customer to make orchard data easy”. That’s a concept that applies across all sectors. 

Matty tells us, “We believe technology is moving rapidly and will impact the way we grow tree crops forever. There’s no limit to what’s possible. We are a small agile team that are committed to helping growers realise leverage future technologies to the fullest – the same way technology has changed the office environment. We are excited to do our part to feed the world!”

Hear Matty speaking at https://techweek.co.nz/whats-on/2018/landwise-2018-technologies-for-timely-actions-80/

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

Uncategorized

Onions Update Field Walks: Franklin and Canterbury

Franklin event

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)

Canterbury event

When: Wednesday 17th January 2018, 10:30 to noon
Where: Lovett Family Farms, Mossgrove Block,
1212 Chertsey Kyle Road, Pendarves

If wet we will meet in shed on the property.

The field events will demonstrate the following:

Managing variation in onion crops

Dan Bloomer (LandWISE) and Bruce Searle (Plant and Food Research) will demonstrate the mapping of onion crops, the use of smartphone apps to capture canopy information and the SmartFarm website for data processing. You will be able to assess the crop variation in the fields and discuss what might be driving the  variation seen. We will also discuss the fertiliser management trials being conducted at LandWISE.

Practically managing soil N using quick tests

Plant and Food Research have been evaluating a quick test for soil nitrates which they will demonstrate at these field sessions. Measured nitrate concentrations can be compared with critical threshold limits that have been established for a number of crops to assess the crop requirements for nitrogen fertiliser.

Electric Weeding Demonstrations (Franklin only)

Kazel Cass, Hotgrass Ltd, will demonstrate a ROOTWAVE PROTM electro-thermal weeder, used for amenity weeding. Electro-thermal technology uses electricity to turn the water in plant tissues to steam. Electricity flows through the stem and the roots, killing the whole plant. Foliage dies back and, along with the dead plant roots, turns into organic matter. It works systemically and is very efficient compared to alternative technologies such as flame or steam weeding.

Come along and see for yourself!

Note: The Franklin field walk will be followed by a HotGrass electric weeding demonstration, see more here>

Our Onion Research is in conjunction with Plant and Food Research. It is funded by Onions NZ and the Sustainable Farming Fund.

Thanks to A S Wilcox, Murray Wymer, Dean Pye, the Le Poutre and Lovett families for hosting trials. Thanks to Seed and Field, Pukekohe Grower Supplies and PGG Wrightson for helping with monitoring.

This season our MicroFarm work is being aided by Apatu Farms who are helping with field operations and harvest and we are very grateful for their support. The MicroFarm is supported by the Centre for Land and Water, BASF Crop Protection and Ballance AgriNutrients.

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, events, MicroFarm, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research

Onions Update Field Walk

LandWISE MicroFarm
21 Ruahapia Rd, Waipatu, Hastings
Monday 11 December 2:00pm

In our final year of “Benchmarking Onions” we have again planted a crop at the MicroFarm. It went into a suitably moist soil, emerged reasonably evenly but has shown increasing variation. We now have very good areas and very disappointing areas. 

We’ve mapped the crop with our CoverMap system again this season so we can compare 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 growth patterns. Are there areas that consistently perform better or worse? What is driving the variation we see?

We also have a few different varieties we are tracking to see how canopy development fits our web calculator. We want to know if the same calculations can be applied to phone images or if variety-based tweeks are necessary.

In a couple of fertiliser application trials we comparing standard and late application because we understand most nitrogen is taken up at or after bulbing. And based on our mapping, we are comparing the effects of full and half rates on areas where canopy cover is low. Maybe we can cut back, save fertiliser and leaching and get the same yield with improved bulb quality.

Come along and see for yourself!

Note: This field walk follows the HotGrass electric weeding demonstration, see more here>

Our Onion Research is in conjunction with Plant and Food Research. It is funded by Onions NZ and the Sustainable Farming Fund. This season we are being aided by Apatu Farms who are helping with field operations and harvest and we are very grateful for their support.

 

Agronomy, Nutrients, Soil

Practically managing soil N using quick tests

1 Comment

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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