As they say, spring has sprung here at the MicroFarm. It has been a busy start to the 2024-2025 cropping season. With the help of McCain Foods and Mike Kettle Contracting our early peas were planted on the 3rd of September, six days after our target date. Pea Planting The Conventional treatment, which was planted…
Category: Research
Lessons from two years of winter cover crops
When the Carbon Positive project began, most of the Operations Advisory Group probably thought “six years = six crops”. Certainly, the focus for the operations group has been on the summer crop(s). A lot of energy has been put into getting the operations right for each treatment. Our winter cover crops, initially thought to be just…
STAMP Field Trip – IFAMA 2024
Last year I joined the STAMP (Strategic Thinking Agri-Food Marketing Program) for young professionals working in the agri-food sector. The program is supported by Massey University, AGMARDT and FoodHQ. We meet four times a year to connect, and through workshops, case study analysis, and discussions, we are provided with a platform to gain insights into…
European Covered Production
In this post LandWISE Project Manager Alex Dickson discusses two examples of covered horticultural production in Europe, which were explored in her recent travels to Europe. Almería – a sea of greenhouses At the bottom of Spain on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, you’ll find Almería. Almería is a city and municipality of Andalusia,…
More questions than answers – Regenerative Ag
LandWISE Project Manager Alex Dickson discusses some of her thoughts on Regenerative Agriculture after her trip to Europe in June. As I grapple with my own understanding of Regenerative Agriculture (RA), a trip to Europe was just the thing I needed to provide me with more questions than answers! EU Green Deal- Farm to Fork…
IFAMA International Case Study Competition
Alex wins in Spain LandWISE is delighted to have supported our Project Manager Alex Dickson to be part of the 2024 IFAMA case study competition held in Almeria, Spain in June. We were even more delighted by an immediate result, as Alex posted in LinkedIn: Their group developed a proposal for a food alliance which…
Carbon Positive
June update Most of June has involved watching cover crops grow! but we also completed a series of soil measurements including visual soil assessments (VSAs) and worm counts, and we have sampled for labile soil carbon. To monitor the cover crops’ development, we have made weekly ground cover measurements since germination using the smartphone Canopeo…
Pots to Plots
Microshock Weed Control Is an Effective and Energy Efficient Option in the Field This is a summary of Dan’s work published under the AgResearch led “Herbicide Resistance Management” project, of which LandWISE was a small co-funder. The full paper was published open access in the Sustainability journal, and is freely available to everybody here> Abstract:…
Rebuilding Our Soils – Successful Conference
Many thanks to everybody involved in our 2024 Annual Conference! All up we had 99 registrants who heard from 23 amazing presenters and saw 9 different practical demonstrations. Our special thanks to everyone who contributed by sharing their knowledge and experiences, and to delegates for their active interaction. Thanks to Pure Catering and our hosts…
Rebuilding Our Soils
LandWISE 2024 – Rebuilding Our Soils Havelock North – 15-16 May 2024 We are looking forward to our annual conference this week. We will report on our current work with industry, researchers and growers seeking out and trialing best ways to rebuild soil.Our invited speakers will present alternative practices and novel ideas, some perhaps fringe,…