Some important “Thank you”s:

For the last three seasons, Gerry Steenkamer and family have supported our onion growing and the OnionsNZ Sustainable Farming Fund project on Benchmarking Variability. Without their help we wouldn’t have even had a crop and seen the variability in it in the first place. Since then we’ve been dependent on them for prep and planting, harvest and marketing the crops we’ve produced. We are extremely grateful for that. Many, many thanks Gerry, Jenny, John and all the staff who have done great work for us. It has been a privilege.

This year Apatu Farms have come on board to help us with our final year of the Benchmarking project. So, many thanks too Mark and Paul and your staff who are helping us this season. We especially appreciate fitting our very small but time consuming job into your schedule during a very difficult planting season. With seven different varieties planted, it took even longer than normal, but we are thrilled with the job done.

Two years ago we borrowed a tractor from Mike Glazebrook for a few months. After two seasons, we’ve returned it but also thank Mike and Nigel for their help with MicroFarm activities. The main role of this machine was carrying our sensors, then towing a small spray trailer over our onions. It was an ideal fit, but is now needed again at its true home! Thanks Mike and BioRich.

To replace the BioRich tractor we’ve picked up an older John Deere 2030. To fit the Apatu Farms standard bed we’ve been getting the wheels out to run on 2 m wide beds. That took a little work, but it’s now all go.

This project is a collaboration with Plant and Food Research for OnionsNZ with support from the MPI Sustainable Farming Fund.