Crop Stacking in Pukekohe Vegetables Katherine Martin is a consultant at Perrin Ag, working across agronomy, farm systems, and environmental planning to support growers in improving productivity and strengthening environmental outcomes. Her work spans vegetable and pastoral systems, with a strong focus on soil health and regenerative practices at the paddock scale, alongside translating research…
Category: Cover crops
Soil Health for Profit – Simon White
Minimising cultivation impacts in broadacre cropping Simon White is a farmer and entrepreneur based in Otane, Hawke’s Bay. He and his wife, Lou, have built a diverse operation with soil health at its core. They have a mix of arable cropping and sheep and beef finishing across 1100 hectares which has been in their family…
Soil Health for Profit – Rene Van Tilberg
Strip-till and under-sowing cover crops in maize Rene Van Tilburg is the Senior Maize Researcher at FAR, leading the development of the maize research strategy and overseeing a range of trials. He focuses on identifying the constraints that limit yield and productivity, with a particular interest in moving beyond simple comparisons to understanding the mechanisms…
2026 Winter cover crops emerged
The winter cover crops in the Carbon Positive trial plots are well underway now. The last dull, wet, cold week slowed them down a little, but they still made good progress. The preparation and planting was covered in an earlier post that you can see here> To the left of the central irrigator strip, the…
Soil Health for Profit
LandWISE Conference 2026 Havelock North Function Centre27 – 28 May 2026 Our “Soil Health for Profit” theme in 2026 is, in some ways, a return to the past. LandWISE arose out of work to combat soil erosion through use of minimum tillage and we’re returning to strip-till in 2026. A lot has been learned in…
Winter Cover Crops
After the 2025-2026 butternut crop was harvested, the Regenerative treatment received Omya Calciprills (150 kg/ha), Sulphur (30 kg/ha), Boron (10 kg/ha), and Humates (5 kg/ha). This mix has been applied annually to stimulate soil microbes for good soil health. Thanks to Websters Hydrated Lime for supplying the micronutrients again. All three treatments were then disced…
A Lighter Touch Biodiversity Field Walk
If you’re a grower or someone interested in biodiversity planting to support pest management, we’re hosting one of the A Lighter Touch (New Zealand) Biodiversity Grower Group Field Walks at the LandWISE MicroFarm on the 19th of March from 10-12 pm. We’ll look at our bio-strips which are made up of different mixes, were planted…
Biodiversity Strips Update
We established two new biodiversity strips on the MicroFarm in 2025, in addition to the two from 2024. One of the new strips, which is located under the irrigator wire, includes alyssum, calendula, and native ground covers. The other strip which is along a fenceline has the A Lighter Touch annual flower strip mix, which includes alyssum,…
Nitrate Levels on the MicroFarm
Throughout the Carbon Positive Trial, Soil Nitrate levels down to 30cm have been monitored fortnightly. During the tomato crop (26/10/2023 – 6/3/2024), the Regenerative treatment had significantly lower nitrate levels than the Conventional and Hybrid treatments, despite all three receiving similar amounts of nitrogen. This lower nitrate level was likely due to the breakdown…
Carbon Positive: Preparation for butternuts
In the 2025-2026 cropping season, the fourth summer of the Carbon Positive trial, we are growing butternut pumpkins for Heinz-Wattie’s. Our planned planting date of the 15th of November is fast approaching. The conventional treatment was broadcast sprayed with glyphosate in mid-October and cultivated in early November. It was disced, then aerated, rotary hoed and…