Matt Norris is a research associate at Plant and Food Research within the Sustainable Production (Field Crops) team in the Hawke’s Bay. 

Matt has a background in soil science and chemistry and a keen interest in sustainable nutrient management including modelling nutrient losses from arable and vegetable production systems.

Matt is responsible for leading and managing a range of environmentally focused research projects. His primary focus areas relate to nutrient management, specifically quantifying N and P losses from arable and vegetable production systems. Additional areas of research include N mineralisation dynamics from dairy effluent amended soils and developing novel soil testing approaches for informing N management decisions.

Matt will present both a talk and a practical demonstration on  a Quick Test for Nitrate, a way to rapidly determine how much available nitrogen is in the soil for crops to access. LandWISE and Plant & Food used this in our Onions NZ /SFF research this season to determine how much fertiliser we might apply when we had areas with different size canopies.

You can hear and discuss this with Matt at LandWISE 2018 in Havelock North on 23-24 May.