We have been delighted to have Bridgette Haldane working with us this summer, with support from Callaghan Innovation. A Hawke’s Bay local, Bridgette is studying agriculture at Massey University.

We have a major soil health and soil fertility programme this season. We are doing baseline measurements at the MicroFarm, and we have eight process crop paddocks with nitrate rate trials underway. Many of our soil samples are taken to 90 cm, so Bridgette’s enthusiasm for hard fieldwork is a real bonus!

While with us, Bridgette has been assisting with our Best Management of Nitrates in Process Cropping project, doing Nitrate Quick tests, VSA soil assessments, MicroFarm baseline testing and site maintenance, running a small greenhouse trial investigating the effects of two additives on sweetcorn germination and initial growth, trialling a new soil slaking test, helping make training videos and doing some work in our Nano-vineyard. We’ve also given her a couple of topics to research and summarise, a bonus on some of our wetter days!

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We are delighted to have Alex on board, with her strong background in nutrient management and a focus on sustainable production systems.

The local farms are part of the second year of our “Best Management Practice of Nitrates in Process Cropping” project funded by MPI through the Sustainable Farming Fund, with co-funding and support from Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Kraft-Heinz Watties and McCain Foods. As with everyone else, the wet spring has delayed many plantings, but we have six trials established, with two more green bean crops to be planted in January.

We began an extension to our “Future Proofing Vegetable Production” project in July. That is making a series of online learning resources, based on the lessons from the Future Proofing Vegetable Production work in Gisborne and Horowhenua. Alex stars in two new videos, which can be viewed on our new-look website.

Alex is also managing a new trial that will be announced shortly. A lot of preliminary work behind the scenes and a huge amount of baseline sampling in the field has kept everyone very busy for the last few months.

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Herbicide resistant weeds are a real and increasing issue globally and evident in New Zealand. Herbicide resistant ryegrass is for example, a problem in both arable farms and vineyards.

We are working with Trevor James and AgResearch in a project focused on improved weed control and vegetation management to minimise future herbicide resistance. The project is funded through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and major co-funder, the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR).

The project has four main work areas:

Anticipating herbicide resistance

A Lincoln University team is seeking to predict likely herbicide-resistant weed assemblages worldwide and identify weeds most likely to develop herbicide resistance in new regions. The world-wide mega-database of herbicide resistance will be used to create a matrix of 100 regions and 200 weeds for each major herbicide group. Those relevant to New Zealand will be ranked on their likelihood of occurring in New Zealand. Outputs will be a risk index that indicates a) weeds currently in NZ with a history of herbicide resistance elsewhere in the world pose the greatest risk to our agriculture b) herbicide resistant weeds currently absent from NZ that pose the greatest risk of establishment if unintentionally introduced here and c) weeds worldwide that have a high likelihood of becoming resistant in the future and the risk they pose to NZ.

Understanding and influencing drivers of herbicide practices

The AgResearch People and Agriculture team seeks to identify and describe the systemic drivers of on- and off-farm herbicide practices to influence and change behaviours. They are working with key stakeholders (Māori, farmers, national sector players and international experts) to identify and leverage opportunities to more successfully address factors across the supply/value chain that restrict or hinder change.

Identifying instances of resistance and their impact

Grasslands and Massey University researchers will develop superior new ways to rapidly identify resistant plants. This will use genotyping and seed bioassays to create ‘quick tests’ for key weed species. They will also model spread scenarios for resistance genes to determine the greatest risk of resistance i.e. from on-site resistance evolution or from dispersal of resistant weeds. They started with perennial ryegrass before adding other species for screening.

A number of farm surveys have now been completed, and there are significant numbers of resistance being identified and several species and to several active ingredients.

Managing herbicide resistant weeds

We are in the team led by Trevor James looking to develop new non-herbicidal interventions (e.g. robotic weeders, abrasion technologies and smart cultivators) and the use of cover crops (in collaboration with FAR) for both managing existing and avoiding new instances of herbicide resistance.

Included in this section is ‘rediscovering’ Māori management practices such as traditional strategic resting and natural pathogenic organisms to target the soil weed seed bank). While virtually all our problem weeds are introduced from Europe and the Americas, the holistic approaches typical in Māoridom seem fully relevant to a systems based approach to weed management. A second group in this team is to isolate and evaluate natural pathogenic fungi and bacteria for their ability and efficacy to kill weed seeds.

LandWISE members are well-aware of the risks of herbicide resistance. It has been an aspect of LandWISE projects since the early 2000s when we began promoting strip tillage and no-till systems to maintain soil quality and reduce energy inputs. The extra pressure on herbicide controls when physical cultivation is reduced saw us publish charts of herbicide groups for different crops. Maybe it is time that work was brought up to date!

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Together with the New Zealand Asparagus Council, we were fortunate to obtain funding from “Our Land and Water” to investigate nitrate best practice management.

We surveyed a number of growers about fertiliser and nitrate management practices. We find growers generally have good management for transport, handling and storage. We see a wide range of practices for nitrate management including rates and timing, and this is what we are trying to understand.

We have established five trials, two in Hawke’s Bay and one each in Mangaweka, Manawatu and Mid-Canterbury. We are monitoring nitrate levels in soil, roots and fern, to build a picture of how the amounts move between these pools. 

As part of the project we offered fertiliser application equipment calibration, and the machines tested were doing an acceptable job. We used the fertspread tool to complete calculations and produce reports.

While a large number of samples have been sent to the Eurofins lab for analysis, we are also using the Nitrate Quick Test to assess nitrate in the soil at three depths in each plot.  When we compare the results of the quick test with lab results, we find a good agreement. The key is making sure the soil sampling is done correctly so it is representative.

Many thanks to the growers hosting and supporting the trials, and the NZAC and Our Land and Water for support and funding.

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Focusing on sweetcorn, tomatoes, beetroot and green beans, we are comparing current farm practice with either the “Nutrient Management for Vegetable Crops in New Zealand” guidelines or some alternative rate.

Despite a late start and tricky spring, we established trials in six Hawke’s Bay paddocks, with solid support from the farmers and process companies.

Our summer intern, Bram helped considerably in getting trials established, taking many soil samples and conducting numerous Nitrate Quick Tests, supported by lab analyses completed by Eurofins.

We harvested five full trials; 1 green bean crop, two tomato crops and two sweetcorn crops. The data are still being analysed – results at the LandWISE AGM Seminar in June.

A sixth crop of beetroot  ended up with no alternative fertiliser rate after the last application was deemed not only unnecessary, but likely to result in oversize bulbs for the baby-beet specification.

Similar trials in 2022-2023 will provide information of practice and effects on the same crop selections in a different season.

Many thanks to McCain Foods, Heinz-Watties and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council for co-funding, the farmers hosting trials, and MPI for financial support.

The post Update – BMPS for process vegetable crops appeared first on LandWISE Staging.

Bram spent much of the summer sampling the asparagus and process crops we are researching, and doing many, many Nitrate Quick Tests. Here he is taking soil samples from a squash paddock.  This was part of the Sustainable Vegetable Systems project being run by Vegetables Research and Innovation, Potatoes NZ and Agrilink. Our Asparagus Nitrate Best Management trial took Bram to Hastings, Manawatu and Mangaweka. And he was busy in Hawke’s Bay, sampling for our Best Nitrate Management for Process Crops project.

We were delighted to host Bram this season, and to show him some of the farming systems we work with and research methods we use.

Many thanks to Bram, and Callaghan Innovation for support via the R&D Experience grants programme.

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