Agronomy, AgTech, Automation, Controlled Traffic Systems, LandWISE People, MicroFarm, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Sensing, Soil, Water

Excellent LandWISE 2016 Conference Speakers

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We published the list and short biographies of our invited speakers today. We are again privileged to have an extremely knowledgeable group representing farmers, technologists and researchers from both sides of the Tasman Sea.

Conference keynotes and new LandWISE Australians include Ian Layden and Julie O’Halloran, precision horticulture researchers and extension specialists from the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF).

Ian and Julie are leading a group of two dozen top growers and agronomists for a week of related events built around the LandWISE Conference. Queensland farmer Ben Moore and Tasmanian farmer Robbie Tole will present their own experiences investigating precision horticulture opportunities.

Returning LandWISE Australians are Tristan Perez from Queensland University of Technology and John McPhee from the University of Tasmania. Tristan will update us on progress with weeding robot AgBot II and Harvey the capsicum picker. John will tell us about precision horticulture research underway in Tasmania.

Parallel work is being done in New Zealand. Look for reports from  Plant and Food researchers Sarah Sinton, Paul Johnstone and long serving LandWISE Board member Bruce Searle. Chris Smith from AgriOptics, Jane Adams of OnionsNZ and LandWISE’s Dan Bloomer and Justin Pishief will overlay a series of precision cropping and related topics.  Charles Merfield from the Future Farming Centre will give a review of biostimulants and related technologies – a different aspect of the agritech revolution.

Rounding out Day 1 are agritech accelerator Sprout Entrepreneur in Residence Stu Bradbury and two accelerating companies represented by Tom Rivett and Julian McCurdy.

Day 2 has a focus on value from data and robotics. We hear a lot about “big data” and “value chains”: what are they? Alistair Mowat, James Beech and Megan Cushnahan will tell us how they and others are getting real value, and where there’s still value to be tapped. Roger Williams will outline how Plant and Food is investing in digital horticulture research.

Lincoln Agritech’s Armin Werner has been a regular attendee at LandWISE. This year he takes the stage with a global review of field robotics and weeding technologies in particular. Kit Wong will tell us about Callaghan Innovation development of systems for machine vision to manage onion crops.

David Herries of Interpine will take us to a different sector and explain how UAVs are giving value in forest research and management.  And rounding it all up, Simon Morris of ALtus UAS will make sure we understand the regulations governing our use of this still new but very powerful technology.

So come to LandWISE 2016: the value of smart farming. Have you mind expanded, your knowledge updated and your excitement kindled. Mix and mingle with leaders in farming, agronomy and agtech!

Conference programme here>

Speaker biographies here>

Conference registration here>

 

LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture, Research

The Value of Smart Farming

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header1525 and 26 May 2016

Havelock North Function Centre

LandWISE 2016: The Value of Smart Farming is our 14th Annual Conference! Details are on-line and registrations open.

This year we are proud to host a delegation from Australia with two dozen growers and advisors crossing the Tasman to join us. The conference is the central point of their week long tour from Auckland through the Bay of Plenty to Hawke’s Bay and the Manawatu.

Tour leader, Ian Layden is also one of our keynote speakers. Ian and the Queensland growers have been trialing precision vegetable growing, assessing the same sort of things that are of interest to LandWISE members. We look forward to learning from their experiences.

A carrot harvester fitted with a yield monitor as part of Queensland Precision Vegetables research. (C) Image from SPAA 2015 Conference Proceedings
A carrot harvester fitted with a yield monitor as part of Queensland Precision Vegetables research. (C) Image from SPAA 2015 Conference Proceedings

On a different angle, Charles Merfield will present results from a review of the agricultural uses of plant biostimulants. Plant biostimulants are diverse substances and microorganisms used to enhance plant growth. The global market for biostimulants is projected to increase 12 % per year and reach over $2 billion by 2018!  Despite the growing use of biostimulants in agriculture, many in the scientific community consider biostimulants to be lacking peer-reviewed scientific evaluation. Merf’s review will get us up to date with the science that is available on this topic of great and growing interest.

In 2015, LandWISE and Plant and Food Research began a three year project investigating variability in onions crops. We will report results from our first year’s activities, ranging from individual onion measurements to images from satellites and a swag of things in between.

Mapping canopy development with smartphone app - camera shrouded to avoid shadow effects
Mapping canopy development with smartphone app – camera shrouded to avoid shadow effects

We hear more and more about “big data” and “data analytics” and “value chains”.  These need not be scary! and we have several experienced speakers to let you in on the secrets. Join Alistair Mowat, James Beech and Megan Cushnahan as they explain value chains, the value of massive amounts of image data to identify signatures of specific crop factors, and how big data gives insights that were previously unseeable.

The party wouldn’t be complete without a peek at field robots and UAVs. Do you know the Civil Aviation rules about flying a drone – even on your own place?

Check out the programme, register and we’ll see you in Havelock North!

Thanks to Our Loyal Platinum Sponsors!
Thanks to Our Loyal Platinum Sponsors!
AgTech, Automation, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture, Research

A visit to Climate Corporation

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LandWISE’s Dan Bloomer joined a large group of New Zealand ag-tech organisations for a week getting to know the Silicon Valley venture capital and tech start-up scene.

The first visit was to Climate Corporation, recently acquired by Monsanto. How can you not be impressed by a three metre 3D projection screen? One you can control from a tablet, make it spin like the earth, view the globe from any angle, and project any theme you like.

ClimateCorpGlobe
Climate Corp Chief Technology Office, Mark Young, demonstrates the globe.

Climate Corporation seeks to understand the world and its climate, map it in real time and make useful information available to the world’s farmers. We saw time lapse of global cloud cover, near real time views of sea surface temperature and as shown above, global ground cover allocated to food for animals and food for people.

But their interest is wider than the weather. The Climate Corporation aims to build a digitized world where every farmer is able to optimize and flawlessly execute every decision on the farm.

They are investing heavily in agronomy and creating growth models to help predict crop development.   To achieve greater seed placement accuracy they developed SpeedTube, a precision elevator to replace drop tubes. This is said to allow more precise seed spacing at twice the normal planting speed. Same quality at twice the rate? Sounds attractive!

This visit was organised by Wharf42, NZTE, Callaghan Innovation and the Silicon Valley Forum.

LandWISE People, Research

One Minute Questionnaire #2

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Responses to the first one minute question covered a wide range of things for which people sought relief!

While self washing and folding clothing is of interest to all, it’s not perhaps one we are well placed to resolve, at least not rapidly. Other requests included getting wide machinery to fit through standard gates, reducing time spent on repetitive tasks such as spraying and weed control, and simplifying compliance.

A number of people identified recording information as their key bugbear. So that’s one we follow up with Question Two.

Data

Question of the Week:

What sort of information is recorded manually, then collected and entered into a computer so it can be used?

Email your reply -click here

Or use the form below

Fields marked with an * are required

Thanks for sharing your problems; believe it or not, we really want to know!

Research

The One Minute Questionnaire

In the lead up to the LandWISE Conference, we are polling our readers about things that would add value.

We only know the first question: the next one will be determined by your responses.  So please take one minute to tell us what would make things better for you.

We’ll collate responses, determine what needs to be followed up, and let respondents know what we find.

Thanks for helping!

Question of the Week:

What one thing you do on a regular basis would you like to change to make your job easier?

Email your reply -click here

Or use the form below

Fields marked with an * are required
Agronomy, Controlled Traffic Systems, MicroFarm, Planting, Projects, Research, Soil, Tillage

Winter Cover Crops Established

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This winter we have established both Caliente Mustard and Oats in paddocks 1 and 2, the site of our last two years of summer onions.

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Oats and Mustard well established 12 days after drilling

The ground had not had onions before 2014-2015 as far as we know. We grew our second crop in succession in 2015-2016.

Our plan is to grow onions for a third year, and to pay attention to the development of weeds, pests and diseases. Plant and Food Research reported some evidence of “Pink Root” in a few plants while harvesting samples of the 2015-2016 crop.

After harvest, Gerry and John Steenkamer ripped the beds, leaving the wheel tracks. This is step 1 of a route into permanent bed cropping at the MicroFarm.

Unfortunately, the alignment of the main AB line for the entire block did not match the buried drip irrigation installed some years ago, and it has been damaged beyond repair.

Mike Kettle Contracting drilling oats and mustard
Mike Kettle Contracting drilling oats and mustard

After ripping, Mike Kettle Contracting power harrowed the paddocks to about 100mm to reduce the rubbley surface. The Caliente and Oats were drilled by Kettle Contracting on 16 March.

We chose a split-paddock planting, with Caliente on the northern side and oats on the south. This repeats last winter’s pattern, so we will have two years of onions followed by either Caliente or Oats when we establish the 2016-2017 crop.

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Caliente emerging on 23 March, 7 days after planting
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Oats emerging on 23 March, 7 days after planting

Many thanks to True Earth Organics for supplying the Caliente seed, and to G & J Steenkamer and Mike Kettle for groundwork and drilling.

 

Agronomy, Projects, Research

Onion Crop Harvested

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The MicroFarm onion crop was lifted on 3rd February and harvested on 13th February prior to promised rain.  Many thanks to Gerry and John Steenkamer for providing equipment and staff to do these tasks.

We don’t have final yields yet, but the load out was about 70 tonnes per hectare.

Here is a simple photo essay showing some of the scenes from the ground and from our UAV.

Lifting

Lifting DSC_4997_web

Lifting_04_web

Lifting_02_web

Harvesting

Harvesting_1_web

Harvesting_2_web

Harvesting_3_web

Harvesting_4_web

And off to the packhouse

TruckingOnions_web

Agronomy, Automation, MicroFarm, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Sensing

Scouting by Consumer UAV

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Consumer UAVs are increasingly seen as farm tools.  Some come with camera and packaged tech for easy flying, pretty much straight out of the box.

But before you leap in, please be aware there are RULES.

We suggest you spend time on the AirShare www.airshare.co.nz and CAA www.caa.govt.nz/rpas/ websites before you get started.  Designed specifically for UAV users they have easy to digest information setting out what you can and cannot do.

DJI Phantom 3

Our package came with all equipment, an extra battery and optional propeller guards packed in a tough custom carry case.  The camera is on a gimbal for steady shots, panning and tilting. Zoom in by getting closer!

A downloaded smartphone or tablet app shows flight information such as height, position and battery charge and lets you see exactly what the camera sees with no delay.

In windy conditions, we achieved about 13 minutes of flight time rather than the 23 minutes stated for each battery charge. Rules say you must be able to see the aircraft with your own eyes so you are probably limited to under 100ha. You could make a reasonable inspection in that time.

Peas and onions from 30m Web

We used the UAV to scout at the LandWISE MicroFarm. Viewed from 30m up, crop variation is immediately obvious.  Pea flowering striping seems to match drill widths. We had variable emergence too so ponder the link. Sprayer runs are visible too.

On the onion side we see thinner areas to the bottom right, and patches where Plant & Food have harvested sample plants as part of our joint OnionsNZ research project.

OnionsFrom40m_VerticalPlots

Viewed from directly overhead we see more of Plant & Food’s research plots, some harvested and some still being followed through to final harvest. The image indicates all these plots are within a reasonably good and even part of the crop.

To the bottom right, a lower wetter area shows lower populations where plants are smaller and fewer made it through establishment.

OnionsFromUAV_CloseUp45_web

Dropping to a metre of two above the crop and tilting the camera, we see up close. Because we are seeing what the camera is seeing, we can choose exactly what we want to check and go there immediately.

So we’ve scouted the whole paddock, had a closer look here and there, and if we need to, we can walk to the spots we want to check in detail. The thing is, we know where we should be looking.

Agronomy, Irrigation, MicroFarm, Research

Process Pea Yields

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We earlier posted an article on flowering patterns in our process pea crop. (See http://www.landwise.org.nz/projects/flowering-patterns-in-process-pea-paddocks/).

The crop included three lines of Ashton peas, and an area where irrigation was withheld to stop flowering. It also had plots where crop covers were placed at planting to minimise effects of pigeons on plant population or shoot removal.

The crop was harvested in December and yield observations made. We didn’t see significant differences either in hand harvested plots or in viner yield estimates between the seed lines or the cover options. Unfortunately we failed in our tracking of the planter position and delayed emergence strips.

 

 

Agronomy, MicroFarm, Precision Agriculture, Projects, Research, Sensing

Satellite Imagery

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A large part of Heretaunga Plains horticulture was photographed for us by satellite at the end of November.

World View 2 satellite coverage of the Heretaunga Plains on 23 November 2105
World View 2 satellite coverage of the Heretaunga Plains on 23 November 2105

Part of our OnionsNZ Variability project, the World View 2 coverage targeted our crop and other onion crops east of Hastings.

By capturing four bands of light, Blue, Green, Red and Near Infrared, we are able to get a “normal” colour image like an aerial photo, and a biomass map using the NDVI index.

The satellite image pixel size in 0.5m x 0.5m, so we get at least two pixels across each onion bed.

World View 2 NDVI image captured 23 november 2015 of MicroFarm onion and vining pea crops
World View 2 NDVI image captured 23 November 2015 of MicroFarm onion and vining pea crops

In the NDVI image, the onion crop is lower left paddock, the vining peas upper right. Red areas indicate low or no biomass, yellow light, green moderate and blue heavy cover. Note however that the value of each colour is slightly different for each crop.

Because the pea canopy is full ground cover while the onions are only roughly half ground cover, we had to use different value bands to see variation within each crop. If we used the same range, either the peas would all be blue, or the onions mostly yellow and red.

The striping effect in the onions is the onion beds. Some adjacent beds have quite different canopy densities.  The red edge around the onions is bare soil and light canopy in the outer beds. The blue area in the centre is influenced by charcoal from an old bonfire site. Even taking these things into account, there is a reasonably large amount of variation in this crop.

Red spots in the pea crop are patches with no plants. The red headlands show light canopy areas and the red strip centre right the irrigator access track. There are three different seed lines of Ashton peas making up the pea crop. These are not discernable in the satellite image. The crop was harvested on 14 December, and there was no significant difference seen in hand harvested plots or in the viner.

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