21 – 22 May 2014
Awapuni Function Centre, Palmerston North
Many thanks to our Platinum Sponsors, BASF Crop Protection and John Deere who actively put their support behind the conference. This extends the support they have already given LandWISE for previous events and our MicroFarm initiative.
The theme reflects the increasing demands on farmers to demonstrate effective stewardship of the land and water resource that underpins their businesses. We have a guided tour of an intensively cropped catchment where farmers are working to achieve water quality that meets community expectations and values.
Having our Conference in a different region acts on our mission to promote sustainable farming and smart technologies to as wide an audience as possible. We previously held the conference in Palmerston North and Gisborne with good attendances and we expect a good response in 2014.
Other prospective Sponsors and Trade Displays can contact us anytime at info@landwise.org.nz
We want a big turnout at LandWISE 2014. We encourage you to use your communication channels to ensure as many interested people as possible know, value, register and attend. We look forward to your support.
Congratulations LandWISE Members Bruce and Jo Graham. Together with Rob and Sandra Faulkner, they have been named Supreme winners of the 2014 East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards.
There is a Ballance Farm Environment Awards Field Day at Wairakaia on Thursday 27th March 2014 for those keen to see the farm and hear what the families have been doing.
The Faulkners and the Grahams run a 600ha family farm ‘Wairakaia’ at Muriwai south of Gisborne. At a special Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA) ceremony on February 20, Wairakaia also collected the Beef + Lamb New Zealand Livestock Farm Award, the Hill Laboratories Harvest Award, the Massey University Innovation Award and The East Coast Farming For The Future Award.
Bruce was part of LandWISE project work looking into strip tillage and precision agriculture techniques. He started his GPS journey with the purchase of a lightbar for spraying in 2006. In 2009 he purchased Trimble RTK and EZI steer, allowing him to drive hands-free and focus on the implements and results behing the tractor. Wairakaia hosted LandWISE field days to help extend knowledge of these practices.
The LandWISE MicroFarm is preparing for its second Open Day to be held at 3 pm on 2 April 2014. The two crops for discussion are sweet corn and green beans.
Green beans are a relatively new crop here, and questions over best management remain. The MicroFarm Discussion Group selected a few options this season. Some may require following up with more investigations.
Plant arrangement and population are two key questions. Herbicide and fertiliser options are also being considered.
Tasman Harvesters Director, Gary Cutts returned from a trip to Europe where he saw most green beans are planted on 15” or 381mm rows. Gary was very keen to try the narrower row spacing. He has noticed smaller canopy crops that do not fully fill the allocated row space are difficult to harvest well.
This season we have planted one MicroFarm paddock at 15” or 381mm spacing, increasing the in-row spacing to keep the population near the norm. At half the usual spacing for crops such as process sweetcorn or maize, fitting tyres into the mix is a challenge.
McCain Foods Field Officer, Ben Watson was interested to know what plant population might be optimal. He set up four rates from 300,000 to 370,000 plants per hectare.
Ballance AgriNutrients’ Mark Redshaw has used double rate phosphorous in one half and no phosphorous in the other. Other nutrients are the same, rates determined following soil testing at Hill Laboratories.
Scott Marillier and Vaughan Redshaw at Fruitfed Supplies selected a standard herbicide programme for most of the area. Haydn Greville applied 600mL/ha BASF Frontier and 500mL/ha Magister as a pre-emergent spray. This was followed by 3L/ha BASF Bentazone at two trifoliates.
By the end of February the buried drip had applied four 10mm irrigations. That was enough to keep just above stress point.
HydroServices’ soil moisture monitoring showed the un-irrigated paddocks were stressed from early on. Funding constraints have prevented us getting the dream irrigation system so we started using our mini-gun, applying 20-35mm at the end of February. While adequate on pasture, it is not ideal for crops.
Many
thanks to Thanks to: Centre for Land and Water, ThinkWater, Netafim, HydroServices, McCain Foods, Ballance AgriNutrients, BASF Crop Protection, FruitFed Supplies, Agronica NZ, Nicolle Contracting, Te Mata Contractors, Drumpeel Farms, Greville Ground Spraying, True Earth Organics, Tasman Harvesting Plant & Food and Peracto for support with this work.
Entering the MicroFarm after a three day gap highlights how rapidly sweetcorn grows at this tassling stage. The crop has moved quickly, although the in-paddock variability remains. This crop is desitined for McCain Foods Hastings plant. More details are available on the MicroFarm website.
Green beans were planted in four paddocks on 31 January 2014. We have a range of things being looked at including row spacing, plant populations, fertiliser and weed management options. More details are available on the MicroFarm website.
We started irrigating the beans in Paddock 2 on 18 February with the ThinkWater/Netafim buried drip system. The other blocks are not currently irrigated. Promised rain did not arrive so moisture levels in the dry land crops are starting to drop. HydroServices has put neutron access tubes into Paddocks 2 and 5 and are monitoring for us. The results of monitoring are posted on the Irrigation Monitoring page.
We are grateful to Stu Mawley and the Te Mata Contractors staff for a big job ripping the bean paddocks prior to planting. We have identified deep soil compaction as a significant limitation on-site. This is a legacy of the previous orchard impact and one we need to deal with. We also believe bonfire sites where old orchard trees were collected and burned have left a problem behind. The soils seems “fired” and has very large, very hard lumps. The drivers quickly tired of replacing shear bolts.
Te Mata Contractors used four-tine rippers from Lawson’s True Earth Organics. These are narrow shanked and set at 762mm spacing, so we could run them between the buried driplines in Paddock 2.
We have been learning about peas and irrigation. We have published two articles in The Grower (see the January and February editions). We were impressed to see vining peas drawing water from very deep in the profile. In our early plantings we could see the effects of a compaction layer on water availability. In our later plantings we had the comparison of drip irrigated cersus dryland, and were interested to see differences in water consumed in tha last couple of weeks before harvest. Thanks to HydroServices for providing our monitoring.
Steve Green has donated us a radiometer to add to the Plant & Foodweather station on-site. Once we get the wind sorted we’ll be able to calculate our own potential evapotranspiration figures. The radiometer complements the existing rain gauge, temperature, humidity and leaf wetness sensors on the station. These are standard on Plant & Food “orchard monitoring” stations, which are mainly intended to support pathology and enable assessment of disease risk.
We have also installed an Aquaflex sensor which was donated by Streat Instruments. This is stabilising, but with little rain since installation, we are not yet fully confident of the data. These are available on the MicroFarm website courtesy of Plant & Food and HortPlusMetWatch.
At the MicroFarm, we just harvested our second lot of peas. We tracked their water use since planting to build on learning from our first crop (see the December 2013 issue of “Grower”, reproduced here>).
Once again, HydroServices’ Melanie Smith established three neutron probe access tubes in each of two crops. These were read weekly and analysed to tell us paddock soil moisture content down to 80 cm.
Both pea crops were planted on the same day with the same drill. Paddock 1 is dryland and Paddock 2 has drip irrigation installed 200mm deep.
Figures Paddock 1 and Paddock 2 show soil water content for each crop.
Paddock 1_Peas
Paddock 2_Peas
We see the crops tracked about the same at the start. In mid-December, Paddock 2 received two 9mm irrigations from our buried dripline.
Melanie estimated that the irrigation was 80% efficient, so only added about 7.5mm to the budget each time. Paddock 1 is not irrigated, and continued to drop towards stress point.
Paddock 1 reached Refill Point on Boxing Day two days before rain fortunately lifted it back out of stress. Paddock 1 again hit stress point on about 6th January. With no more significant rain, it stayed stressed. With irrigation applied as required, Paddock 2 remained stress-free throughout.
Overall, the two crops used similar amounts of water through until early January. After that the 0 – 30 cm soil reached stress point, and water use from the unirrigated Paddock 1 began to taper off. The steeper lines in the bottom part of the graphs show it began to get more water from deeper in the profile.
By harvest, Paddock 1 was using only about half as much water as the drip irrigated Paddock 2 and drawing it from much deeper in the profile.
The difference in what a crop did use and what it could have used if the water was available is described by Potential Soil Moisture Deficit.
We estimate that by harvest, Paddock 1 suffered about 100mm of PSMD. I am not sure what the pea response is to stress. I am told it is a “very elastic” crop. For many crops this would indicate a growth reduction of about 20%.
So did irrigation pay?
We sampled each crop pre-harvest and found Paddock 2 had about 30% more fresh weight canopy than Paddock 1. The difference was easily seen, being significantly taller and generally more “lush”. The peas in Paddock 1 reached harvest maturity at least three or four days before the irrigated peas in Paddock 2.
We get paid for peas not canopy. We also sampled yields and quality as measured by TR (pea tenderness) and found differences.
There was a lower tonnage in Paddock 2, but the quality (and pay-out value) was much higher.
At harvest the Paddock 1 tonnages were reasonable at 6.85 t/ha paid yield. But TR was 137; a bit high and the lowest pay-out grade.
We delayed harvesting Paddock 2 for two days. The paid yield was similar at 6.55 t/ha but the TR was 102, a 30% higher pay-out grade.
Paddock 1 returned $2,059/ha and Paddock 2 returned $2,625/ha gross, so a benefit of $566/ha from irrigation.
We applied 81 mm so our return from irrigation was $6.99/ha/mm applied. Many people quote an irrigation cost of about $2/ha/mm so let’s claim a benefit of $5/ha/mm applied.
Looking at it another way. If we had a 20ha paddock, irrigation would have made us about $8,000 better off. If we also sold pea hay, the benefit would be even greater.
The first MicroFarm Open Day was held on Thursday 5th December. The event received significant media coverage, including a two page spread in Rural News.
We are grateful for the excellent presentations made by our speakers, and for the quality of discussion that followed. Attendees travelled from South Canterbury, Manawatu and Gisborne to join local growers, contractors and their support industry colleagues.
The MicroFarm is a genuine community activity, as shown by the sponsors and supporters listed below. We are unsure of all the outcomes, but we know there will be much learning along the way.
The MicroFarm has two crops of peas almost ready for harvest. We have been tracking their water use since planting. We want to learn as much as we can about our soil and irrigation.
HydroServices’ Melanie Smith is our specialist support for soil moisture monitoring. She established three neutron probe access tubes in each of our first two crops. These are read weekly and analysed to give a Paddock soil moisture content down to 80 cm.
Both pea crops were planted on the same day with the same drill. One had some nitrogen starter-fertiliser because our discussion group wondered if it would make a difference, but that is another story. For now, we are talking irrigation management.
We are seeing significantly different patterns from our two crops. Significant in that considering the usual 30 cm root depth, one crop needed irrigating a week before the other. Significant in that one would get through to harvest at the start of December without needing to be irrigated. The other would need irrigation. What’s going on?
Let’s look at two graphs: Paddock 3a and Paddock 4a which are the two crops in question.
Paddock_3_aPaddock_4_a
The top parts of these graphs show soil water content in the top 30 cm. We see that in each case the Full Point (116 mm) and Refill Point (82 mm) is the same. So we have 34 mm of readily available water our plants can access from the first 30 cm depth of soil.
The graphs show Paddock 4 reached Refill Point a whole week before Paddock 3. In fact, Paddock 4 hit Refill Point almost three weeks before Paddock 3, and but for a chance 12 mm rainfall would have gone into critical deficit in early November.
Let’s compare these graphs a bit more closely.
We see they tracked about the same to start with, then at the beginning of November Paddock 4 suddenly used significantly more water from the 0 ‑ 30 cm root zone than did Paddock 3. This is around the time the canopies reached full ground cover.
Our observations of the crops suggest Paddock 3 had more canopy so we thought it would be using more water than Paddock 4. Looking at the lower parts of Graphs 3a and 4a, we see that Paddock 3 used more water from deeper in the profile at 40 – 50 cm.
We did some Visual Soil Assessments and found more evidence of soil compaction in Paddock 4. Being the main gate access into the area it has seen more tractors, trucks and paddock forklift activity. So we expected to see compaction limiting root development.
Now lets look at the water content in the whole soil profile, right down to 80 cm, presumably well past any pea roots (Figures Paddock 3b and Paddock 4b).
Paddock_3_bPaddock_4_b
The first thing to notice is much higher water storage, because 80 cm of soil has more readily available water than 30 cm of soil. So now Full Point is 314 mm and Refill Point is 232 mm giving 82 mm of readily available water for our crop to grow before we would need to irrigate.
When we compare these two graphs we get a different picture. Now we see the two crops using similar amounts of water through until 14 November. After that, Paddock 3 (the fuller canopy and better soil condition) used slightly more water than Paddock 4, and actually hit Refill Point a day or so earlier.
Overall, it seems our Paddock 3 crop is getting more water from deeper in the profile, accessing water from 50 ‑ 80 cm deep.
For a lower price crop like peas, reducing costs makes a big difference. Can avoiding compaction save the need to irrigate?
How deep are your crops’ roots?
Many thanks to HydroServices for the soil moisture monitoring at the MicroFarm
The LandWISE MicroFarm in Hastings is an attempt to discover and apply best practice for cropping. Our aim to maximise production while minimising the environmental footprint.
We believe the soil has amazing abilities to grow and restore itself if we avoid compaction and over-working. So we want to minimise the area we drive on and do whatever operations are needed at the best time with least structural impact.
We have seen time and time again that controlled traffic systems provide good “roads” to drive on and good gardens to grow in. But are they realistic in a typical process crop regime?
We can start by avoiding unnecessary traffic. Trucks can be particularly damaging
At the MicroFarm, this season started with six paddocks of vining peas for McCain Foods; early peas in early September, late peas in late October. They were followed by four paddocks of green beans and two of sweetcorn.
In September the soil was at field capacity, and it was raining. The forecast promised showers or rain every day for a week. Thankfully, we got the pasture sprayed out while it was a bit drier, though even then the tractor and spray trailer left visible tracks.
Our paddocks are part of the overall “grand plan”. The planners at the factory worked out their through-flow needs on a daily basis. The field staff worked out how many hectares to plant each day. We need to plant when the schedule dictates. The alternative may be less attractive.
Think about risks. The basic idea behind risk assessment is to combine assessments of hazards with assessments of probability that the event will occur. A serious hazard with a high probability of occurring is assigned the highest priority for risk management.
At planting time the average grower is facing many risks, and constantly ranking them in their mind, even if informally. “Not getting a crop planted” might rate higher than “avoiding a bit of compaction”. So we are going to plant. And there is a high risk of soil compaction.
What can we do to reduce the impact of the hazard, to reduce the likelihood of it happening, or to reduce its severity if it does?
Conventional tractor set up can have a lot of ground:tyre contact and a lot more from drills and other equipment
The key is planning ahead, and taking sensible steps well in advance of the problem arising. We can plan for this when we have a less stressful period, install drainage in a quieter time, and plan a reduced wheeling strategy well before the season even starts.
We can plan drainage to keep excess water off the paddocks and remove excess water in a timely way. That should reduce the likelihood and severity of damage.
We can ensure our soil is in the best condition possible. That will increase infiltration and drainage rates removing water faster and make it structurally stronger to carry traffic. We can put only essential wheels on only the minimum area of paddock. That will reduce the damage area.
We could remediate. We could aerate after planting to remove compaction, get air back into the rootzone and give the roots a chance to penetrate. That won’t reduce the compaction, but at some financial cost it will help remove it. And the soil is too wet anyway.
Last season we visited minimum tillage sites after operations in sub-optimal conditions. We were very pleasantly impressed at how little damage these paddocks suffered.
We’ll still have to tidy up if we make a mess, but we’ll have to do it less often and more easily.
This posting first appeared as an article in “The Grower” magazine
With the generous support of many companies and individuals, the LandWISE MicroFarm is established and active. The first of two vining pea plantings has germinated and the rest is sprayed out in preparation for another planting in late-October.
We are holding the first MicroFarm Open Day on Thursday 5th December 2014. More in our newsletters.
We have set up a separate website for the MicroFarm at www.microfarm.landwise.org.nz There you’ll find an increasing amount of information as we post details of activities, progress and outcomes.
It is the first season of many over the next five years and like others we’ve struggled at times with weather and wet soil. Weather records from the on-site weather station are available on the MicroFarm website at http://microfarm.landwise.org.nz/farm/weather/ thanks to HortPlus.
With marking the paddocks out, setting AB lines and checking we can fit in the number of rows we want, spraying and planting we’ve driven on our soil a lot. A lot more than we would like. We want to minimise traffic impacts but with many different vehicles involved we’ve not done so well.
James Powrie and Dan Bloomer completed initial Visual Soil Assessments in each of the six Blocks. Worm numbers were lower than expected, contributing to moderate rather than good scores in two Blocks. More details here>
Block 4, with the main access gateway, shows significantly greater evidence of compaction. We’ll monitor that as we go: dealing with residual compaction is a key question as we try to maximise crop production.
Melanie from HydroServices has installed neutron probe soil moisture monitoring sites into Blocks 3 & 4. We are interested to see what the impact of compaction in Block 4 might mean for soil water holding. We’ll post results as testing progresses.
Paul Johnstone, Bruce Searle and Sarah Pethybridge from Plant & Food, together with Fenton Hazelwood and Grant Hagerty from BASF have designed a first look at plant growth regulators to control flowering in vining peas. We hope some control can raise harvestable yield. Vaughan Redshaw and Scott Marillier from Fruitfed Supplies in Hastings have sourced the materials we need. Because of significant rain, Tim Robinson from Peracto and Ben Watson from McCain Foods tested leaf status before first treatments are applied.
The remaining Blocks have been sprayed off for late peas. We are anticipating a slightly later planting date. In part we want to modify Patrick Nicolle’s drill to apply inocculants at planting and the parts have yet to arrive. . .
We have a group in Hawke’s Bay focused on best management for field cropping. We want to know how far we can push production without degrading the soil, our base resource.
We have drafted a five year cropping programme, based around process crops, but with other crops in the mix. This is typical in the region where process crops are mixed with onions, squash, some cereals, occasional potatoes and often winter grass.
In our programme we have tried to eliminate animals and pasture, looking instead at maximising vegetable production. Given the different seasons, season lengths and the realities of planting dates that must fit factory schedules, this gets a bit tricky.
Central to our plan are vining peas and green beans, two crops with specialist harvest equipment. Viners are very heavy. The bean harvester weighs in at about 18 tonnes plus 4 tonnes of crop when full. The pea viners are around 22 tonnes, plus a couple more of crop when full.
These machines have large wheel or track footprints, so impact a wide path. And pea viners typically travel across the lie of the crop, not up and down rows, so can track anywhere. How does that fit our plans to adopt controlled traffic!
Gary Cutts of Tasman Harvester Contractors is at the centre of the action. The company currently has nine harvesting machines with a price tag of around $1million each. From December, the machines earn their keep, harvesting 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Peas are a very delicate crop and only have a premium harvesting window of 24 hours. Before that they’re too young, and after that they’re too old. It’s an exact science to determine when to pick.
For a successful harvest Gary’s team must respond to demand from the factory and deliver on time. Delays that affect factory processing are costly.
The new harvesters, especially those on tracks, can get on to the ground even in very poor weather. But what is their impact on the soil? They are very heavy, they have big feet, and the soil may be weakened by wetness.
Gary contacted Marc Dresser at Landcare Research after hearing him at a LandWISE Conference. Marc is a specialist in soils and mechanical engineering whose knowledge is unrivalled. He worked with Gary on tyre selection and tyre pressures to optimise performance.
Together they reduced harvester tyre pressures from around 30psi to 20psi. They reversed the direction of jockey bin tyres too. Gary says the difference is immediately noticeable in the field. Coupled with a change to tracks, the soil load has been greatly reduced.
Gary still wants to know what the impact on the soil is. Are harvesters doing damage? If they are causing compaction, what is best practice remediation? When should it be done? How does it impact following crops?
We want to know too. And we want to know what a farmer can do to best prepare their soils before the harvesters arrive. Before the crop is even planted.
We can control traffic in pretty much all operations with the equipment in use now – except for the viners. We’ve looked at a number of scenarios, which suggest that the 30” row is the factor that sets the standard. Smaller tractors might straddle two rows, bigger machines can straddle four. If equipment is sized accordingly, we can get the trafficked area down to about 17% of the ground. Except for the viners.
Most paddocks only see peas about once in five years, so that leaves 4 years and 11 months of controlled traffic. But in our super-intensive farm, we might see peas almost every year and green beans too. We really do need to know how to manage this aspect of some of our important regional crops.
