Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Data Analytics, Irrigation, Precision Agriculture, Sensing

Simple tools for complex problems – Aaron Furrer

Aaron is a Stanford University graduate with both a technical and agricultural background. Aaron has prior experience in running his own company as well as being involved with several start-up opportunities and VC firms in Silicon Valley.

Aaron moved to New Zealand in 2016 where he co-founded an AgriTech company specializing in smart irrigation control. At the end of 2020 he joined CropX, a global AgAnalytics company whose vision is to revolutionize and automate the farm and the decision-making process.

At LandWISE 2021, using case studies of growers from around the world, Aaron illustrated examples of the myriad of tools and technologies growers have at their disposal, and how CropX helps connect the dots between these data layers to make management decisions with tangible outcomes.

Listen to a Summary Sound Clip here:

AgTech, Automation, Conference, Data Analytics, Fruit, Innovation, Orchard, Precision Agriculture, Robotics, Sensing

Counting and mapping flowers and fruit – David Manktelow

David Manktelow founded Applied Research and Technologies, providing contract and independent research work in horticultural plant protection, pathology and spray application technology.

A life-long innovator, he constantly seeks technologies that do tasks better. Whether simple strips of water sensitive paper or a fast laser scanner, he finds ways to help growers constantly improve practices.

At LandWISE 2021, David described the Green Atlas system of automatic counting and mapping of flowers and fruit in orchards.  Together with Fruition Horticulture’s Jack Hughes, David has trialled the Green Atlas system in Hawke’s Bay and displayed the equipment at the field event.

Green Atlas Cartographer is a combination of hardware and software that allows flower and fruit counts to be quickly and accurately mapped over entire orchards. An unprecedented level of detail allows crop management to be tailored to every tree.

Listen to a Summary Sound Clip here:

 

AgTech, Automation, Data Analytics, Fruit, Innovation, Orchard, Precision Agriculture

Automating Harvest Data Collection – Matty Blomfield

Matty Blomfield grew up in a small town in New Zealand. He took a chance and moved to Japan at 17, and later New York to broaden his view of the world. When he asked growers and packhouses what their biggest problem was they answered, “How do I know what fruit I have to store/pack/sell?”

Committed to reducing the amount of fruit wasted globally, by giving growers the platform to capture data, analyse their orchard in ways they’ve never done before, and improve the consistency of high quality, safe fruit, Matty co-founded Hectre to provide an orchard management software tool. Their super quick and simple fruit sizing app, Spectre, is an example of the innovation they’re bringing to the fruit industry.

Spectre uses computer vision AI technology to detect fruit size and colour, all from the simple click of an iPad or iPhone. Sample sizes captured by Spectre are 100 times those obtained in traditional sizing practices and accuracy levels are extremely high at 95%+. Results are served up within seconds making Spectre the simplest, fastest and most accurate, portable computer vision fruit sizing tool available on the market.

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, Conference, Research, Uncategorized, Weeds

Herbicide Resistance – Trevor James

Trevor James is a senior scientist with AgResearch and has been involved in researching weed management for more than 46 years. His work has covered weeds in pastoral, arable, horticultural and environmental situations.

Specific research areas include Herbicide resistance, soil weed seed bank and seed ecology, herbicide residues and persistence, border biosecurity and new incursions.

Trevor is a keen photographer of plants and with colleagues has published books on identification of weeds and their seeds.

At LandWISE 21 Conference, Trevor will report on progress being made in the MBIE funded project “Managing Herbicide Resistance”.  The goal is improved weed control and vegetation management to minimise future herbicide resistance.

Herbicide resistance occurs due to genetic mutation – in this case, when mutations help the plant to survive an application of herbicide to which they were once susceptible. “Target Site” resistance is related to a single gene, which alters the biding site so the herbicide no longer works. “Non-target site” resistance involves many genes, and alters the path to the binding site so the herbicide doesn’t reach it, metabolises (destroys) the herbicide or increases the number of binding sites.

Many thanks to our Sponsors!

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Research, Weeds

Rapid Test for Resistance – Andrew Griffiths

Andrew Griffiths is leading work identifying genetic markers of herbicide resistance. The broad aim is developing tests that allow the quick assessment of weed tissue that shows a plant is resistant to herbicide.

Currently plants are gown to maturity, seeds harvested, sown, grown and treated with varting rates of herbicides. This is a slow and costly process. The genetic marker tests could give answers in days.

Andrew is a Senior Scientist at AgResearch where he has worked extensively on forage improvement, including researching the genetics of grasses and clovers.

Agronomy, AgTech, Conference, Innovation, Precision Agriculture, Research, Weeds

Thor Versus Tinkerbell: Options for weed control – Dan Bloomer

Dan Bloomer is an aging part-time PhD student at Massey University.  Passionate about farming and technology, he’s been an irrigation consultant, kiwifruit orchardist, lecturer, and land management advisor. He is currently Principal of Page Bloomer Associates, member of the AgritechNZ Executive Council, and importantly, Manager of LandWISE Inc.

At LandWISE 21, Dan will describe some alternative non-herbicide weed management technologies, and give consideration to the amount of energy they may require.

The amount of energy required typically ranges from 2 to 2,000 Litres of diesel per hectare. With a desire for sustainable practices and low energy consumption in food production, Dan’s current focus is using very targeted, high voltage but low energy techiques to effect control of arable weeds, including braodleaves and ryegrass in cereal crops.

Dan’s weeding research is part of an MBIE AgResearch project “Managing Herbicide Resistant Weeds”, with Dan’s role being assessing non-chemical techologies including hot water/hot foam, compressed-air abrasion and electric weeding.

AgTech, Automation, Conference, Innovation, Precision Agriculture, Weeds

Developing an Electric Weeder – Hamish Penny

Hamish Penny started the electric weeding company Weda Tech in 2019. He has a passion for solving problems with technology.

Hamish was introduced to agritech in his final year engineering project which focused building an electric weeding device.

Since then, Hamish has completed a Master’s in Engineering and worked on several projects including Weda Tech, which aims to commercialise the unique equipment he has developed to provide weed control options for farmers.

Electric weeding is the destruction of weeds with high-voltage electricity. Differentiating it from other non-chemical weed control techniques, electricity allows a systemic kill of a whole plant, low energy usage, minimal soil disturbance, operation in wet soil conditions, and can control weeds in close proximity to crops – even when touching.

Weda Tech was founded to harness the inherent benefits of electrical weed control and use a precision approach to develop novel equipment that can control the widest variety of weeds in the widest range of environmental conditions. The focus has been to build highly flexible pulse generation equipment and powerful measurement techniques to allow understanding of the way weeds respond to specific treatments.

There are some obvious synergies between electric weeding and image-based weed recognition and robotics, that could be combined to maximise the capabilities of electrical weed management.

There are a few start-up companies around the world developing and commercialising electric weeding equipment, including Rootwave (who have recently been collaborating with the Small Robot Company), Crop.Zone and others. Weda Tech is focused on thinking about the problem differently and through an understanding of the optimal dosage for a specific weed in specific conditions, is creating solutions that solve the most significant problems faced by farmers.

A strip weeding device is currently under development, with a 10-20cm wide electrode that could control a strip next to a crop or, be combined in parallel to control any width of paddock.

The current research device will also be developed into a site-specific weeder that can control low weed densities, with a robotic or human arm guiding to the target weed.

Plans for future development remain open and feedback is welcome.

Listen to a Summary Sound Clip here:

Thanks to our Conference Sponsors

AgTech, Conference, Fruit, Innovation, Orcharding, Vegetables

New Zealand’s Place in the Agritech World – Nick Fitzpatrick

Nick Fitzpatrick has spent the last 20 years in Primary Industries, primarily Fresh Fruit and Vegetable sector including 15 years with T&G Global’s International division, including establishing their Latin America business with offices in Peru and Chile, and in Asian market expansion.

More recently Nick worked for  California based Science and Innovation start up company – Apeel Sciences, introducing plant based science and technology solutions to post harvest operators globally.

Now consulting to the Agriculture industry, including Callaghan Innovation, Nick is passionate about helping companies to embrace Innovation and Sustainability across their business.

With this background and his current role as Project Lead – Agritech Commercialisation at Callaghan Innovation working within the Agritech ITP, Nick was well placed to inform LandWISE 21 delegates about New Zealand’s place in a big world increasingly focused on agritech development.

Nick introduced the NZ Agritech Industry Transformation Plan and its aims:

  • using comparative advantage to grow Agritech as a high value export sector
  • Lifting primary sector productivity & sustainability, and enabling companies to move from volume to value
  • Contributing to global environmental and sustainability
    challenges, and helping feed the world & reduce emissions

Callaghan Innovatoin is developing and early adopter network. THe aims are

  • Ensuring companies are solving the right problems
  • Increased collaboration between Industry, Agritech companies and government + Research partners
  • Better understanding of the ‘size of the prize’, both in NZ and Offshore.
  • Better prepared Agritech companies when showcasing/trialing products or going to market.

Nick explained the size of LATAM opportunities while contrasting the nature of agriculture and horticulture in Chile and Peru. Chile has good infrastructure, an educated population, and a qualified
technical workforce in the Fruit industry. Their key products are Cherries, Grapes, Pipfruit, Berries, Citrus and Avocados.

Peru is emerging as regional superpower. It has a different agriculture structure to Chile which has thousands of small farms and hundreads of packers and exprters. Peru has a number of very large farms. The key products are Berries, Grapes, Avocados, Citrus, Mangos, and Vegetables.

In summary:
Chile and Peru in particular are ripe for introduction of new, cost efficient, technology as the fruit sector transforms from being heavily dependant on human labour to embracing automation and
innovation. Chileans and Peruvians are eager to engage and open to new tech in Agriculture.

Listen to a Summary Sound Clip here:

Promoting sustainable production