We were delighted to host Vicky Bloomer from Drop Consulting to present the Irrigation New Zealand Performance Assessor training course at the Centre for Land and Water this week. And what a wet week it was, so we thank them for breaking the drought in this part of the country.

The course participants were out and about visiting Drumpeel Farms to assess a centre pivot, our neighbours YummyFruit to assess drip/micro system and an Oderings nursery to look at a solid set system. At the LandWISE MicroFarm, they assessed the linear move irrigator. LandWISE Project manager Olivia Webster is one of the course participants

The performance assessment course is based on the Irrigation New Zealand Piped Irrigation System Performance Assessment Code of Practice, initially developed by Dan Bloomer at Page Bloomer Associates. The concept of irrigation performance assessment was strongly promoted by Hugh Ritchie following his Nuffield scholar experiences in the USA and he was a key player in obtaining funding support to write the New Zealand codes in the first place.

The MicroFarm Linear

The LandWISE linear machine was donated by Hugh and Sharon Ritchie. It was converted to a low energy precision application system (LEPA) by WaterForce who have been excellent with anything water related we need. The machine began life as a 460m multi-span linear at Drumpeel, and when it was due for replacement, Hugh collected the best bits and rebuilt it to fit the LandWISE MicroFarm. In its early days, it was repeatedly measured as a test case while the Code of Practice was developed! It was also used in other SFF projects assessing impacts of application intensity of soil surface redistribution and consequent soil moisture uniformity.

Quinn Elstone at WaterForce deigned the LEPA system specifically for the MicroFarm layout, centring the outlets above each 2m bed. We run two parallel header pipes along the linear span, and we can split the sprinklers between them. We can use the sprinklers as rotators doing a wide overlapping ~12m spread to maximise uniformity and minimise application intensity. Or we can run them as sprays with a 5m spread, keeping application tighter to our 12m plots. A third option is changing the nozzles to tighter 2m splash plates that water each bed individually. Or we can turn individual nozzles off.

Images of irrigator showing 12m spread rotators on left, 2m splash plates in centre and 5m sprays at right

Why LEPA?

It gives us tremendous flexibility.

In the LEPA system the nozzles are very close to the ground, so we see very little effect in windier conditions. And because we generally run the irrigation during the day to take advantage of our solar electricity system for pumping, there is often a bit more breeze than at night. We haven’t converted the machine from diesel yet – that is on a long list!

We can tailor irrigation to treatments.

In our Carbon Positive trial, we’re running 6 beds per treatment plot, and sometimes we want to do different things to different treatments. When the nozzles are running as sprays, there is very little overpal of treatments.

The WaterForce LEPA system lets us turn one treatment plot off and irrigate the other two, or irrigate only one plot. We can run nutrient solution in one header and fresh water in the other and fertigate some plots and not others, even though we have three different treatments under the irrigator at any time. For us, the Drumpeel/WaterForce machine has been life changing because without flexible high-quality irrigation, our trial work is severely impacted.

We are tremendously grateful to the Ritchies for the generous donation, and to WaterForce for their supply and installation of the components. It is this kind of community support that characterises LandWISE and has allowed it to be a success.

Carbon Positive Field Walks

We hold regular open field walks for our community to visit the Carbon Positive research plots, hear updates and contribute to future plans. Our email LandWISE Updates give details – sign up to receive notifications.

LandWISE Events Archive

Others’ Events

Merfield Agronomy Physical and Ecological Weed Management Workshop

Tuesday 22 July 2025, Waimate, Canterbury 

Learn about the latest in mechanical weeding and how to integrate that and herbicides in this one-day workshop.  Hard registration deadline is Friday 4th July. 

NZAPI EXPO 2025 – New Zealand Apples & Pears

30 July – 1 August – Nelson

2025 NZPPS Symposium – “Resistance Management – Today’s Tools for Tomorrow”

11 August, Christchurch

NZPPS Conference 2025

12-14 August, Christchurch

Potatoes NZ Conference

12-13 August 2025, Christchurch

New Zealand Horticulture Conferences 2025

26-27 August, Wellington

NZARM 2025 Changing Landscapes

11 – 13 November – Blenheim Marlborough

What to plant?

First off, what should we plant? I don’t think we have yet got our cover crop mixes quite right. This year, our hybrid and regen treatments were planted in a diverse mix of 7 species (black oats, tillage radish, vetch, buckwheat, sunflowers, crimson clover and Persian clover). This was to get lots of plant diversity over the winter.

A frost in May killed the buckwheat and sunflowers, which meant they weren’t present over the winter. We planted tillage radish as it is supposed to be the “crowbar of the soil” and will break through tillage pans. Unfortunately, our radishes knew better, hit the pan and, in some areas, popped themselves 10cm out of the ground. This is potentially an issue for both the hybrid and the regen treatments, as chunks of radish could be picked up by the harvester and end up at the factory which may be a problem for product contamination.

Additionally, the radish started to flower and was beginning to set seed, so radish if unmanaged, could have become be a new weed species for us.

In this conversation, there is the question of how much plant diversity do we need? Some of the species we are using, might be okay in a pastoral grazing scenario, but could be hard to manage in a cropping system and therefore become a weed for us. In the systems we are looking at, are we able to select fewer plants, that provide functional diversity, without adding added complexity of to the management of the cover crop?

Another consideration is disease carry over. We intentionally avoided planting tic beans this year, as they could carry unwanted diseases into the following legume crops. Tic beans may be an option ahead of other crops.

Do we graze?

One of the five regenerative principles is to integrate livestock, which we have not yet done in our Regen treatment. However we have grazed our Conventional treatment, which might seem a bit backwards. It is common for Heretaunga Plains growers to plant an annual ryegrass over the winter and graze it with lambs, so we are including sheep in our Conventional treatment.

In the last two years, we wanted to use the cover crop as a mulch on the surface for our main crop to keep the soil surface covered, another of our regenerative principles. If we have a mulch on the soil surface, we hope it will significantly reduce the need for herbicides. To do this effectively, we need to grow a lot of biomass, and therefore don’t want to have sheep or cattle grazing it. We don’t really have a long enough winter growing season to do both. This is where we find tension between some of the regen principles when applied to an annual cropping system. We might yet include livestock; however, we aren’t sure what this will look like in practice.

In addition, lambs can do considerable soil damage over the winter. The photos below show the difference between grazing for a couple of weeks in dry conditions and grazing over a wet weekend this winter.

When to terminate?

Ahead of the tomato planting last year, we had a cover crop of oats, vetch and lupins in the Regen treatment. You may remember that we planned to use a modified tomato planter, which transplants seedlings directly into a mulched cover crop, eliminating the need for both cultivation and herbicides. Just before planting, we met two problems with this plan.

The first issue was that the cover crop was still actively growing and sucking moisture out of the soil, so the soil was very dry in the regen treatment. This led to large, blocky clumps of soil forming in the top 10cm of the profile. The second issue was that the timing of maturity wasn’t right for mulching and killing the oats. In a test area of cover crop, we found the oats regrow, and we had very limited herbicide options to deal with this. It might have worked if we had waited a couple of weeks, however we were working with a factory schedule and had a planting date that wasn’t very flexible.

We want to apply lessons from that experience this year. We are already seeing low soil moisture levels and low nitrate levels in the Regen treatment. To manage the amount of biomass we have grown, and stop the flowering radish from seeding, the cover crop was mulched on the 1st of October. We expect the mulching will not kill the oats, and that we will need to manage regrowth.

How to terminate?

We planted a winter cover crop, it has grown all winter, so what next? Our Operations Advisory Group is having an ongoing discussion on how we terminate it in our Regen treatment. The initial plan was to use a roller crimper, but the consensus is that this is probably not quite the right tool for the job. We have since mulched the cover crop, but we will need another action to terminate it (oats weren’t mature enough). We have two options; we either spray out the oat regrowth or we cultivate to bury the residue.

This is an important conversation for us, as the use of glyphosate is not widely accepted by the Regenerative community. But our discussions with no-till or minimum tillage growers, and some of the Canterbury regenerative croppers, show it is an important tool for successfully reducing or eliminating cultivation. Most of the literature indicates that cultivating is the number one thing to avoid if we want to increase soil carbon, which is the main metric in this trial.

Weed management is a key consideration in beans as there are few herbicide options. If the crop is too weedy it won’t be harvested. If we cultivate, we will have to manage weeds through a suite of other herbicides that have the potential to as harmful as, or worse than glyphosate when compared using the Environmental Impact Quotient.

How do we best minimise soil disturbance? Both cultivation and herbicide use fall into the category of soil disturbance. The question for our operations group comes down to what is the ‘lesser of two evils’- glyphosate or cultivation?

More questions than answers!

A key lesson from the last two years, is that cover crops are important. We have also found that cover crop management is quite complex. There are a lot of questions we need to ask ourselves:

In June this year, I was chosen for one of two teams attending the 2024 International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA) Case Study Competition and Conference in Almeria, Spain. The theme of the conference was Food Security Through Innovation & Sustainability. We were then invited to attend a weeklong food and agri-innovation tour to Bologna, Cologne and then through the Netherlands.

I am lucky to have been in a team with four clever individuals from across the New Zealand Agri-Food sector. Our team included Dan from Silver Fern Farms in Dunedin, Fatima from ANZ in Auckland, Braydon from Perrin Ag in Rotorua, and Katie from Auckland University. We brought a diverse range of skills to our case study analysis, as well as a diverse range of opinions and perspectives on agriculture.

We were incredibly excited to learn that we won first place in our division, with the other New Zealand team coming in second place. Not bad for a little country at the bottom of the world!

While travelling together after the conference we were able to explore food provenance and food culture in Bologna, agricultural research and development in Cologne, and agricultural and horticultural innovation in the Netherlands. We will all be spending the next few months digesting what we have seen, discussed and learnt, and how our experience links to food production back here in New Zealand.

Many thanks to LandWISE (Dan & Phillipa) for allowing me the time away to learn, grow and explore the agri-food sector at a global level.

Applications are open!

Applications are open for the 2024 STAMP intake so if you have talented young people in your business (under 27 at the time of application), encourage them to apply! Click here for more information. Applications close 31st Aug 2024.

9:00 am to 5:00 pm, Friday 26 July 2024

PIA Event Centre, Pukekohe, New Zealand.

In person only, there is no online version.

The purpose of this workshop is to give a complete overview of non-chemical weed management as part of Integrated Weed Management (IWM) and will include addressing herbicide resistance.

Merf is head of the BHU Future Farming Centre and Merfield Agronomy Ltd and co-owner and director of PhysicalWeeding. He is also the OrganicNZ 2024 Organic Leader of the year for excellence in science communication.

The primary audience is cropping (horticulture and arable) farmers & growers as it is these production systems that have the largest challenge with weeds. Perennial crop (e.g. vines, apples) producers will also benefit with one section dedicated to perennial crops (see below). For anyone dealing with herbicide resistant weeds, this workshop is the start of your solution. There are also some benefits for livestock / pasture systems in terms of the overall concepts of non-chemical and integrated weed management.

Consultants and advisors working with farmer and grower clients, particularly in cropping, will gain considerable benefit, especially regarding the latest technologies. Scientists, especially those dealing with herbicide resistance and working on the transition to non-chemical weed management, will gain valuable insights. The content assumes a reasonable level of understanding and practical experience of commercial agriculture and horticulture systems including weed management. This is a really full on and intense workshop – bring your thinking head! Plenty of caffeine is provided!

Cost is NZ$391.30 excl. GST = $450.00 incl. GST.

This includes a colour handout printout of the presentations. It also includes full catering includes tea, real coffee and snack on arrival, morning and afternoon teas and finger food lunch.
Registration is essential as places are limited.

To register please email charles@merfield.com including:

• Your / your business name and address for the invoice.
• The number of people from your business who will be attending and their names and emails.
• A bit of your background, e.g., farmer, grower, consultant, farm system, e.g., veg, apples, so I have an idea of who is coming.
• Any dietary requirements.

More information at Charles Merfield – One day seminar-workshop on non-chemical weed management

In a special event after the LandWISE Conference “Rebuilding Our Soils”, we hosted a wānanga/workshop led by Erina Wehi-Barton, Taonui Campbell and Clare Bradley. Clare introduced the Our Land and Water project “Revitalise Te Taiao” at the conference, and it attracted considerable interest. They have been integrating Matauranga Maori, farming, and scientific knowledge to promote soil health in the Rere Ki Uta Rere Ki Tai project. 

We were delighted to join with regenerative agriculture and cropping research colleagues from Massey University’s “Whenua Haumanu – nurturing the land through exploring pastoral farming“, Leaderbrand’s “Farming for a Healthy Future“, On-Farm Research’s “Evaluating Regen Ag and developing farmer resilience on a dryland demonstration farm” and our own team from LandWISE and HB Future Farming Trust with “Carbon Positive – regenerative intensive process cropping“.

Each of the projects has commitment to mātauranga Māori and as largely pakeha researchers trained in Western science, we can feel somewhat lost. Taonui and Erina provided a structure to explore the threads of mātauranga and the commonalities and differences between the Māori and Western knowledge systems. There are many parallels and overlaps.

Te Taiao is a Māori concept that refers to the natural world, including land, water, climate, and living beings, and their inter-relationships. These are all elements in farm and orchard management and in agricultural and horticultural research, so are familiar to those trained in agricultural or environmental science. Perhaps though, our tendency to focus in closer and closer when using reductionist methodologies puts us at risk of forgetting the context within which we work. A farm input decision is based partly on agronomic research but always includes economic oversight. Increasingly we are conscious that application takes place in a regulatory and social licence context, and within limits set or expected by markets and by importers’ regulations. At another level, we know but can lose sight of the fact, that adjusting one factor is very likely to affect how other factors respond.

Mātauranga can be held by different groupings so exists at Māori level, at iwi, hapū and whānau and even individual level. Just as there is knowledge held by me, shared by my immediate family and with my cousins, among my professional groups and with the population generally. That knowledge is built over time as a result of many observations and understandings and it is everchanging over time and space. Like Western science. Our understanding at one point in time may be revised as new observations are made, lessons learned, and our synthesised understanding evolves. And as agronomists, we understand that knowledge of good agricultural practice that applies in one area or to one crop may not transfer to another.

As farmers and growers and Western science people, we are familiar with bodies of knowledge about physics, biology, chemistry and agronomy, and can extend that to law and finance etc. We know these as subjects we study at school and university. In a 2012 essay, Sir Hirini Moko Mead suggested that tikanga Māori, āhuatanga Māori, kaupapa Māori, manaakitanga, te reo Māori, waiata, tā moko, kapa haka etc. are subjects within mātauranga Māori.

It seems to me that there are many parallels between these knowledge systems – the same, but different.

We are most grateful to Clare and Agrisea NZ Seaweed Ltd for their support, and especially to Taonui and Erina for leading the wānanga. And we also thank the other participants who travelled to be with us and shared their stories, confusions and questions openly in a safe environment. While we had a very informative day, many more lessons await us. We look forward to following this wānanga with others as we grow our knowledge.

Dan

mātauranga: knowledge, wisdom, understanding, skill – sometimes used in the plural. Education – an extension of the original meaning and commonly used in modern Māori with this meaning.

wānanga: to meet and discuss, deliberate, consider. A seminar, conference, forum, educational seminar.

Te Aka Māori Dictionary

Thursday 1st Feb 2024

Our good friends from live2give in Palmerston North are hosting a summer field day to discuss mulch systems for commercial vegetable production. The field day will include a demonstration of the MulchTec-Planter in action. You may remember the MulchTec-Planter from our conference demonstration day last year. We had planned to use to transplant tomato seedlings into the Regenerative Treatment of our Carbon Positive trial. We are working on other opportunities to use the planter in the next four years of the trial, to experiment with direct mulch planting ourselves.

Live2give are in their third year of a Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFFF) project investigating “opportunities mulch direct planting systems hold for New Zealand vegetable growers and for our environment”.

Venue

Conference Centre‘Two36‘, 236 Broadway Avenue, Palmerston North 4414.

Thursday 1st February: 9.30 am – 5.00 pm

Field tour (starting at 1.30pm) will be held at live2give Organic Farm, 538 Aokautere Drive, Palmerston North 4471.

The cost is $40, due to co funding by MPI (SFFF fund ) and live2give. Regular price : $175 (incl. lunch and printed resources).

Please register by email before Friday, 26 January including names and business details: farm@live2give.nz

For more information about live2give Organics visit their website. Sign up to their mailing list to keep in touch with what they’re up to.

Merf’s next workshop will be at Lincoln in July. Details here>

Merf has more than 30 years experience in non-chemical weed management. He started his career helping re-establish Sunnyfields organic vegetable farm in the UK after the previous manager had walked off having lost his war with the weeds. In a sink or swim moment, he devised a new weed management strategy which turned around the weed problem in just two years. From the UK he came to Aotearoa New Zealand for a working holiday from which he is unlikely to return. He worked extensively at Harts Creek Farm in Canterbury as they expanded their organic cropping systems across multiple farms.

He has also invented, designed and built a wide range of weeding machinery including an optimised naturally aspirated flame weeder, re-invented the direct-fired steam boiler and repurposed it for ag / horticultural use, the 4 Wheel Hoe, false seedbed cultivators, interrow hoes, basket weeders and even a new toolbar clamp!

He has over 40 publications on non-chemical weed management including peer reviewed papers and book chapters, conference proceedings and extension publications including though leading articles on the future of weed management.Have a look at ‘Redefining weeds for the post-herbicide era‘ and ‘Could the dawn of Level 4 robotic weeders facilitate a revolution in ecological weed management?‘ See his research page and the FFC website for more examples and additional information.

This project is built on the previous Future Proofing Vegetable Production project and presents a series of on-line workshops and tutorials and make the lessons available to the wider fresh vegetable production industry.

We previously published our first courses and have seen uptake. Give them a try.

• Course 1 Nutrient management for vegetable crops has three main sections: Nutrient management principles, Taking representative samples, and Nitrogen (a special case).
• Course 2 Run an on-farm fertiliser trial, follows our Ten Step Plan for a successful trial you might run to compare alternative fertiliser rates for your crops on your farm. 

We have published the next two courses in our series of online learning resources. There are notes and videos to guide your learning journey!

• Course 3 Fertiliser application equipment explains different types of application equipment and the factors you need to get right to apply the right amount evenly. 
• Course 4 Irrigation Equipment Performance considers irrigation efficiency, soil water management and assessing irrigation systems using the IRRIG8Lite tool.

Course 5 is on its way. It covers nutrient budgeting, determining how much nutrient your crop is likely to require, how much is available and how much extra is justified.

You can access the free online courses here, but you do need to be registered.

We have also written a series of learning courses on our new website. You’ll have to sign up (for free) to access them because a login is needed to keep track of your progress. And there are some self-test questions to help reinforce the messages if you’d like to check your understanding.

Course 1 Nutrient management for vegetable crops covers nutrient management principles, taking representative samples, and nitrogen as a special case.

Course 2 is “How to run an on-farm fertiliser rate trial”. It is based on the “On-Farm Trial Guide” and covers the 10 point plan for running a successful trial.

Our next section is focused on fertiliser equipment calibration. We’ve already got some video in the can thanks to Extremekid Productions.