Our 2026 LandWISE Conference Opening Speaker, James Hunter, is a farmer with a surprising number of decades under his belt.

Rangitoto Station, farmed by Hunters since 1854, is named a local the Pa site that dates to some of the earliest times of NZ occupation. These attachments, mixed with time working for the Rural Bank in the 1980’s when government schemes (namely the Land Development Encouragement Loan) focused on clearing bush and wetlands – now described as biodiversity, and travel through South and Central America seeing first hand some of Natures wonders struggle with so-called progress reinforced for James that the little things that we have around us must be part of our future. He set out to lift farm performance while protecting all remnant native bush/scrub areas, creating wetlands and improving the quality of water leaving Rangitoto.

Time on QEII and NZ Farm Environment Trust boards strengthened the ethos that farming and looking after things natural are rewarding companions. James is currently questioning whether the “regenerative farming” description fully accounts for so much on Rangitoto Station “that is a buzz”. 

Photo from RNZ – see the full article

“http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/570243/disaster-waiting-to-happen-fears-carbon-farming-increases-risk-of-wild-fire.

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Dr. Charlie White is a faculty member at Penn State University, specializing in soil nutrient behavior and management.

He has taught various courses, including Soil Nutrient Behavior and Management, Internship, Independent Studies, Thesis Research, and Supervised Experience in College Teaching.

His research focuses on sustainable agricultural systems, biogeochemical cycles, and nutrient management to promote productive and efficient nutrient use in cropping systems.

In this presentation, Charlie will share some of the key insights into managing cover crops for nutrient management and soil health that he has learned through twenty years of research, much of it conducted in partnership with farmers in the temperate, humid climate of the Mid-Atlantic USA.

These lessons include the importance of measuring and managing cover crop and soil organic matter carbon, nitrogen, and C:N ratios to balance nitrogen retention and supply; that a little bit of grass in a cover crop mixture goes a long way to reducing N leaching; and that a cover crop mixture with balanced species proportions will be the most multifunctional, but achieving evenness in the biomass is easier said than done.

Finally, Charlie will return to his roots in reflecting on the importance of mycorrhizal fungi to the phosphorus nutrition of crops, and why P stratification in no-till system may not be as much of a problem as we think because of these symbiotic organisms.

Making sense of carbon movements. History of strip-till.

Co-founder and manager of LandWISE since 1999, Dan’s career is diverse, with a constant theme of sustainable use of land and water resources. His post-graduate studies included an MScTech in innovation Management and adoption in the primary sector, and a PhD investigating the potential of ultra-low energy electric weeding.  He brings experience across fresh and process vegetable growing, kiwifruit and arable production, to complement expertise in extension, soil health and efficient water management.

Dan is the architect of the Carbon Positive project. At LandWISE 2026, he will present data from soil carbon monitoring in the Carbon Positive project and introduce the use of AI to help understand changes in soil carbon pools.  Powerful, yes. But trustworthy?

Later, he will dive back in history to recall pioneering research into the adoption of strip tillage to minimise soil erosion and soil health impacts. That work saw the formation of LandWISE, ultimately as a stand-alone organisation promoting sustainable production through leadership, support and research. Dan remains a strong advocate for strip-till done right, having seen first-hand its contribution to better soil health, minimised fuel requirements, and financial advantages.

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Dr Sally Anderson is the Scientific Services Manager for Market Access Solutionz Ltd and is based in Wellington. Sally has over 15 years’ experience designing, managing, and implementing science research programmes for New Zealand’s horticultural sector. This includes co-ordinating the Vegetable Research & Innovation Board, managing Summerfruit, Citrus and Onions R&D programmes.

Sally has a science background and holds a and PhD from the University of Auckland, with over 10 years of research experience in environmental ecology, molecular biology, and microbial ecology, with prior roles at NIWA (now Earth Sciences NZ) and the Wellington School of Medicine.

Leading the science services portfolio at MAS, Sally works to support clients with technical advice in plant health research, biosecurity, crop protection, export market access.

As the Vegetable Research & Innovation Board co-ordinator, Sally worked alongside industry stakeholders to secure funding from MPI NIWE fund to support the vegetable, fruit and arable sectors to carry out monitoring post-Cyclone Gabrielle to better understand how highly productive land recovers from these extreme weather events. These learnings and those from other agencies were showcased at the Cyclone Gabrielle Research Symposium, held on the 19-20^th November 2025. Sally will summarise the symposium and its findings.

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 for three generations. Simon and Lou won the regional supreme title at the 2025 East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards, which recognised their focus on sustainability and business success built on diversification and innovation.

Simon is a long-time user of direct drilling and strip tilling on his farm. He sees major benefits in time saving, fuel economy and soil health. He will describe his use of these techniques in his arable, seed production and process vegetable systems.

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 that drive system performance. His work emphasises understanding how and why systems respond, creating opportunities to better manipulate them to a grower’s advantage. This approach underpins the current research strategy and trial programme, which reflects a shift toward mechanism-driven research to improve on-farm outcomes. Rene will discuss his observations from trial work with strip-till and with establishing cover crops into standing maize.

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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 Regenerative plot triticale and vetch established fastest and by April 20 had reached 28% ground cover as measured using Canopeo, a brilliant free app that we use for all our weekly assessments regardless of crop (or fallow!). By contract, the ryegrass was slower to get started and on April 20 the Conventional plots averaged 5% ground cover, and the Hybrid plots a little more at about 8% cover as seen in the chart below. As well as getting underway quicker, the triticale and vetch is accelerating away. We had expected the ryegrass to be fastest, as that was what we observed in previous winter cover mixes, but a higher sowing rate of vetch and the triticale seems to be a good option at this stage.

There is some banding in the plots that seems to be an artefact of planting, but we’re not sure why. It lines up exactly on the planter but may relate to the discing and rolling that happened prior.

We continue our weekly monitoring, and assume that by next week, the Regenerative plots will have crossed the magical, but arbitrary, 30% ground cover faction. How long before the ryegrass plots reach that milestone?

LandWISE Conference 2026

Havelock North Function Centre
27 – 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 the intervening years! Along with that, we’ll look at what can be done to measure and manage crop nutrition and soil health to ensure sustainability and long-term profitability.  

We have international speakers from Pennsylvania and Tasmania complementing national and local growers and experts. They will share how they set out to build profitable enterprises with a focus on soil health and an eye to wider sustainability ambitions. We’ve asked them to offer ideas of things to take home and apply or try – to feed the appetites of keen delegates.

We have talks from people applying regenerative principles in cropping, pastures and orcharding, talks on strip-till and crop-stacking, soil amendments and cover cropping, and managing and minimising the cost of nutrients. As always, expect representation of agritech covering a wide range of technologies.

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All three treatments were then disced twice. Since the ground was so hard and dry, the first pass with the discs was quite blocky, but after the second pass, there were plenty of fines for a seedbed.

The Conventional and Hybrid treatments were both planted with Moata ryegrass (25 kg/ha). The Regenerative treatment was planted with triticale (80 kg/ha) and vetch (50 kg/ha). Butternut residue made drilling tricky as long “ropes” of dried vine blocked equipment. The hard, dry, rubbly surface in areas such as wheel tracks left seed above the ideal soil mix. Normally we would aerate as the last autumn operation, leaving the soil fractured over winter and spring. We think the butternut residue will make that extremely difficult, so have postponed it. If the soil is still dry enough once residues have rotted, we can aerate in a couple of months.

Thank you to Mike Kettle Contracting for doing our groundwork and planting our cover crops.

Because the soil is so dry, and with no rain on the Hawke’s Bay horizon, we are applying 12 mm of irrigation to ensure good establishment. Once complete, we plan to apply bait as our slug populations are extremely high and past experience showed they have major effects on cover crops, especially the vetch we have planted.

A big thank you to all the Operation Advisory Group members who have attended our weekly field walks and helped make decisions for our cover crops.

Carbon Positive is a partnership between LandWISE, the HB Future Farming Trust, McCain Foods, Heinz-Wattie’s and Process Vegetables NZ.