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!

1. What are the right policy tools to support both sustainable food production and growers making a livelihood?
2. How does RA scale to go beyond a ‘buzz word’ to have a meaningful impact on the environment?
3. What role do large corporations play in the transition to Regen Ag?

EU Green Deal- Farm to Fork Policy

In 2020 the European Union introduced the Farm to Fork (FTF) policy as part of the EU Green Deal. The policy aims to rethink the whole food value chain, minimise the environmental impact of food production, improve resource efficiency and enhance biodiversity.

Targets set by the FTF include:

• 50% reduction in the use and risk of chemical pesticides by 2030
• 50% reduction in nutrient losses, while ensuring no deterioration in soil fertility by 2030
• 20% reduction in fertiliser use by 2030
• 50% reduction in the sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and aquaculture by 2030
• 25% of total farmland to be farmed organically by 2030 (9.9% of farmed area was under organic farming in 2021).

These are ambitious targets. In response to these targets, European businesses of all sizes are having to rethink what ‘the system’ looks like in the future and how they fit into food production not only in the face of environmental policy like the FTF, but also in a changing natural environment.

“Regenerative practices are for the future, not for today”

A quote by Tony Salas (founder of Shared X, Peru) at the 2024 IFAMA Conference in a session dedicated to discussing the future Regenerative Agriculture. Shifting from conventional growing methods to regenerative methods shifts the focus from yield, to the management of a functional ecosystem with an emphasis on healthy soils.

Salas reflected on the challenges that the Organic Agricultural movement has had in scaling globally, in 2021 only about 1.6% of total agricultural land was managed organically, and in global food sales organic produce accounted for 1-2%. Such challenges include regulatory barriers, reduced yields, market and distribution challenges and lower profitability.

So what should the regenerative system approach be? How do we scale RA to improve ecosystem and soil health, AND ALSO feed a growing global population, meet increasingly stringent regulatory targets and provide farmers and growers with a good income? Three key points stood out;

1. Focus on adopting a continuous improvement model (Plan>Do>Check>Act) at all stages of the food-value chain
2. Develop flexible standards and avoid exclusive certification
3. Actions must be underpinned with a focus of minimising agricultures contribution to climate change.

“From ‘producing more with less’ to ‘producing more and restoring more’.”

A comment from Kai Wirtz from Bayer, one of the worlds largest agri-chemical companies. Bayer are putting Regenerative Agriculture (RA) at the heart of their company, with a vision to restore nature, and scale regenerative agriculture. They believe that it is possible to grow more using regenerative practices. Their sustainability commitments include reducing GHG emissions per kilogram of crop by 30%, reducing the environmental impact of crop protection by 30%, and supporting 100 million smallholder farms in low and middle-income countries.

Bayer has a global footprint, and they see their portfolio of products and technologies being integrated into regenerative agricultural systems, taking a multi-crop/multi-season approach to farming. This portfolio includes biologicals, crop protection, advanced seed breeding and digital tools.

“Regenerative agriculture is not a destination but a path”

I have arrived home with more questions than answers.

Europe appears to be leaning into regenerative agriculture in a big way, in response to not only stricter environmental policy, but also in what seems to be reasonably genuine concern for the future of the planet and our collective ability to feed a growing population. Large companies (like Bayer) are positioning themselves in the market to support growers in implementing regenerative practices to suit their individual farm systems in countries around the world. We see this in platforms like the Sustainable Agricultural Initiative (SAI), who have signed on over 180 global companies, with the shared goal of transforming agricultural practice for a more sustainable future.

Back in New Zealand, I wonder if we are taking regenerative agriculture serious enough? There are many unknowns, we don’t really know how RA works in NZ farm systems (though we are trying to find out) and change is scary – I find that in our own project. However, I think we know enough to have a go, to start exploring ways of improving management practice to restore ecosystem and soil health.

How do we scale regenerative agriculture in a way that we have meaningful impact on restoring the environment? How do we access the technologies being developed overseas to support change? What does the future of market access look like if we don’t adapt? What does the future of our environment look like if we don’t start to look after our soils?

Or to put it more positively, what does the future look like if we do start to look after our soils? What are the possibilities?

Some other interesting business to explore

• Koppert– Global biological company
• Biobest– Sustainable crop management
• Kimitec– Biotechnology company
• Biorizon– Biotechnology company

The post More questions than answers – Regenerative Ag appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

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 at the Havelock North Function Centre and at the Centre for Land and Water which hosts our MicroFarm and the demonstrations.

Many thanks also to our conference sponsors and supporters. These organisations support us through the year as well as for the conference and we are very grateful. They are the most loyal of partners we could hope for.

Ka mau te wehi!

The post Rebuilding Our Soils – Successful Conference appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

Canopy Development Week 2 – 13

Pest Management

In mid-January we started to see holes appearing in tomatoes, caused by corn ear worm/tomato fruit worm. The first insecticide application we used (Benevia) is registered for chewing insects, so caterpillars were targeted early in the season. However, subsequent insecticides have predominantly targeted sucking insects (psyllid/thrips/aphids/whitefly). We applied Uphold (spinetoram) across all treatments to control fruit worm. The crop was inspected five days after application, and found no active caterpillars. Additionally, we still haven’t seen any psyllid on the sticky traps in the field, which is positive!

Nutrient Management

We have been regularly monitoring soil nitrate levels using the Nitrate Quick Test method. Nitrate levels have been declining since side dressing, which indicates that plant demand is exceeding supply of nitrogen. Fruit set has been good and we want to ensure there is enough energy in the canopy to increase fruit size (and yield).

Additionally, we have been doing monthly leaf tests to look at nutrient levels in the tomato leaves. There have been signs of leaf rolling, and purpling along the leaf margins in all treatments in January. This was more distinct in the Regen treatment. This is an indication of low phosphorus or potassium causing plant stress.

Leaf tests showed lower than optimum Nitrogen percentages in the leaf for this stage in the season, as well as low P and K percentages (graph below showing N%). The Operations Advisory Group decided to apply a late application of fertiliser across all treatments. The Regenerative treatment has appeared stressed compared to the other treatments in recent weeks. There has been concern as to whether the canopy is big enough to size the fruit already set. The OAG used the information available to make a justified ‘grower decision’ to address the apparent nutrient deficiencies.

Nitrogen concentrations in the leaf were lower in the Regen treatment than the other two treatments, so we decided to apply a higher rate of N, to support the plants to harvest. The OAG decided to apply YaraRega 9-0-27.5. The Conventional and Hybrid treatment had 9kg N and 27.5kg K applied (100kg/ha). The Regen treatment had 18kg N and 55kg K applied (200kg/ha). This is somewhat counter intuitive for the Regen treatment, however all of the treatments have now received the same amount of N, around 90kgN/ha. Even with this application the Regen plots have had much less potassium applied compared to the other two treatments.

Drone Application

Fertiliser applied late in the season is normally done using a tractor mounted spreader. However, because our plots are 12m wide, we are unable to get the desired spread width this way. We worked with Airborne Solutions to apply the fertiliser with their drone, to be more targeted with our application, plus avoids damaging the plants by driving over with a ground spreader. The spread of the product was uniform and spread to the 12m width of our plots. The drone carries 40kg of product so was a quick job to get done on our 1.5ha.

The post January 2024 Tomato Update appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

Please register at Eventbrite

Once again, we are opening the gates and doors to the public for a Carbon Positive at the MicroFarm field walk to view and discuss the Heinz-Wattie’s process tomato crop.

We’ve been making nutrient, irrigation and crop protection decisions – come along and discuss our strategies and apparent effectiveness!

Please register at Eventbrite

The post Carbon Positive at the MicroFarm – February 2024 Field Walk appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

Compare these images with last month’s post here>

Operations

Summary

The below table provides an overview of the three treatments and the main management decisions to date.  

Weed control

Due to continued wet weather we missed the window for our second Sencor (herbicide) application. Watties mechanically weeded with their Rototiller on the 1^st of December, which supressed weed growth in the interrow ahead of side dressing. Andy Lysaght then weeded between the double row of tomatoes with one of his mechanical weeders. This was completed across all treatments.

The Badalini (multi-row rototiller) came through at side dressing, completing a shallow cultivation in the interrow and incorporated a pre-emerge herbicide to supress weeds. The operations team decided we would exclude the pre-emerge herbicide from the regen treatment, with the view that we can mechanically weed again if weeds do get out of control.

Disease management

The weather has generally been cooler and overcast through the early part of the season, perfect conditions for late blight and bacterial speck in tomatoes. Our the spray programmes for the Conventional and Hybrid treatments have been the same and have included regular applications of Kocide Opti (copper) to protect against disease. These treatments have also had two Ridomil Gold MZ applications (protectant fungicide for blight). We are trying to exclude copper applications from the Regen treatment, replacing the coppers with Aureo Gold, a bio-bactericide to control disease (mostly used in kiwifruit). Only one Ridomil application has been applied to the Regen treatment as the canopy was smaller early on and had better air movement around the plants.

Insect pest management

All treatments have had one application of Benevia insecticide. A second application is planned for the Conventional and Hybrid treatments later this week. This is mainly to protect plants against Tomato Potato Psyllid (TPP), however also controls aphids and thrips. Some Biological Control Agents (BCAs) have been released in the trial area to help control insect pests (more detail on this in subsequent post).

Nutrient management

Fertiliser decisions are made by the operations group, along with Mark Redshaw from Yara. A high rate of YaraMila Complex (full N, P, K, S, Mg, B, Fe, Mn, Zn) was applied to the Conventional treatment, with a slightly lower rate of Complex applied to the Hybrid treatment. As the background fertility of the plots is in theory high enough to support a crop of tomatoes, it was decided that the Regen treatment would have an application of nitrogen only, so had YaraLiva Nitrabor applied (N, Ca, B). We have been monitoring Nitrate-N levels using the Nitrate Quick Test every two weeks. Results for the top 15cm is displayed below.

Side-dressing

Fertiliser was applied in bands at side dressing through the Badalini (single pass with herbicide application), and worked into the interrow, close to the rows of tomatoes. The Hybrid treatment interrow surface was particularly hard and had two passes with the rototiller to break up the surface.

Foliar nutrition

All treatments had foliar nutrition with YaraVita Bud Builder applied in early November. Regular foliar applications to both the Hybrid and the Regen treatments are planned and bio-stimulants in the mix have been advised. Caution is being when these products are included with other sprays to minimise the risk of burn. In some cases, crop protection and foliar nutrition products are being applied separately.

Irrigation

Management

Irrigation has started with a 15mm application on 16 December that, after the heat and evapotranspiration over the weekend, barely changed soil moisture in the top 200mm where most of our root activity is currently. A second 15mm application was made immediately after the first, and a third is due.

Bucket test

We did an IRRIG8 bucket test and found a DU = 0.88 which is good.

We will make minor changes to the sprinklers on each end and expect an improvement as a result. At the inlet end, a 180 sprinkler is over-applying (orange line) and at the far end a sprinkler is underapplying.

Now is a great time to check irrigation using the bucket test – it is easy to do, it doesn’t take long, and it costs very little. Have a look at the guidance in our Irrigation Management online learning resource. You will need to login – it is free although we welcome paying members to help run the organisation!

“Carbon Positive” is a project running in partnership with the Hawke’s Bay Future Farming Trust. It is funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Kraft Heinz Watties, McCain Foods, and BASF Crop Protection with in-kind support from many others.

The post December in the MicroFarm Tomatoes appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

Bushmere Arms, 1:30pm Tuesday 20 June

We welcome growers and other interested people to an afternoon meeting to discuss actions growers can take to help restore paddocks impacted by Cyclone Gabielle. This meeting is open to all growers; pasture, fruit and vine crops as well as vegetable and arable crops.

Please register – it is free, but we like to be able to plan!

We all know that Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay have been severely impacted by sediment as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle. Months on, there are still many problems to resolve, of which one is “what do I do to fix my paddocks?”

LandWISE with support from MPI, Vegetables NZ, AgResearch, Massey University, Gisborne District Council and Plant & Food has been coordinating the collection of information from experts and from impacted sites. We are offering this Gisborne Workshop to share the lessons so far, offer ideas of possible management actions, and outline a proposed long-term project to continue supporting growers.

What we expect to cover:

• What information is out there?
• Learning from the past
• Decision tree to guide management choices
• Early results from Hawke’s Bay testing
• Early results from Tairawhiti testing
• Paddock responses so far – what seems to be working?
• Where to from here?

We are also working with growers in Northland who, while not covered by sediment, have been severely impacted by constant flooding and long-term soil saturation. There are similar sites in Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti. It has not been an easy season for anyone.

Download a Copy of our Workshop Flyer

The post Soil Recovery after Cyclone Gabrielle appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

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.

The post Vegetable Production Nitrogen Management appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

Regenerative Cropping – McCain Foods
Allan Machakaire is McCain Foods Agriculture Manager based in Hastings. He has been involved in the cropping sector for two decades, involved in growing crops, canning, dehydration and frozen products. Alan has a PhD in agronomy and has published research on photosynthesis and water use efficiency, crop coefficients and on forecasting yield and tuber size of potatoes. He has been with McCain Foods for 13 years.

Allan’s presentation will outline the McCain Foods’ programme for regenerative agriculture, and McCain’s commitment to invest in our understanding of regenerative agricultural practices, costs, and benefits at our own “Farms of the Future” and those of partner organisations.

Lizzy Wicken

Lizzy Wicken is Fruit Agronomist for Kraft-Heinz at Watties in Hastings, taking care of the permanent fruit crops. Born and bred in Hawke’s Bay on an apple orchard, fruit growing is in her blood and is her passion. Lizzy has worked in various roles from on orchard activities to compliance and auditing to technical services and consultancy. She has a Bachelor of AgriScience and has completed her Advanced Sustainable Nutrient Management Course.

Lizzy will present the Kraft-Heinz perspective on regenerative agriculture and why it is seen as an essential component for the food sector from soil to kitchen.

Stuart Davis

Regenerative vegetable production
Dr Stuart Davis is a former Director of Vegetables NZ and former Chair of the Vegetable Research & Innovation Board. He has had a long involvement in vegetable industry research programmes particularly relating to integrated pest and disease management. Stuart is currently Sustainability Manager for LeaderBrand Produce and is based in Bombay.
Stuart will introduce a project led by LeaderBrand Produce, Countdown and Plant & Food Research, which is the first industry-wide collaboration to investigate the impacts of regenerative farming practices in fresh vegetable farming, particularly in relation to productivity, profitability, people and environment.

Alex Dickson

Carbon Positive – regenerative vs conventional cropping
Alex is Project Manager: Sustainable Systems at LandWISE. She will introduce Carbon Positive, which is a new LandWISE project run as a partnership with the Hawke’s Bay Future Farming Trust. The project is comparing conventional crop systems with a regenerative approach, and with a hybrid taking aspects of each.
To assess effects of the different farm systems, the six-year project has a comprehensive science programme, monitoring soil carbon stocks, labile carbon, nutrients, soil health, crop development, yields and financial gross margins.
Alexwill report on the first results following baseline testing, the harvest of process sweetcorn for McCain Foods, and establishment of winter cover crops in preparation for tomatoes for Heinz-Watties.

Dan Bloomer

Soil Health Indicators
Dan Bloomer is the manager of LandWISE and a consultant in areas including soil health, irrigation, drainage, precision farming and agritechnology. Having been at the heart of LandWISE since its inception, he is well experienced in the area of on-farm trials and assessing soil health.

Dan will describe the suite on soil health indicators that are being measured as part of the Carbon positive project, highlighting three identified by the Soil Health Institute as being of particular significance.

Syrie Hermans

Environmental DNA – indicators of soil function
Syrie is a lecturer and researcher in environmental microbiology at AUT. She has studied the biogeography of soil bacterial communities across Aotearoa New Zealand and is now investigating soil microbial communities as indicators of agroecosystem benefits associated with regenerative agriculture.

Biological communities in the soil, especially micro-invertebrates and microorganisms, are crucial members of the soil ecosystem, underpinning the productivity and sustainability of our agricultural land. Syrie asks, “How can we take advantage of this close association to monitor the impact our land use has on the functioning of soil ecosystems?”

Tobias Euerl

Heavy-mulch vegetable growing systems
Fertile soil with high yield security, environmental resilience, evaporation and erosion protection, and a significant increase in soil life are strong arguments for rethinking our approach to vegetable cropping. How can the key factors ‘permanent root penetration and soil cover’ become part of a functional cropping system?
Tobi is a project consultant at live2give Organic Farm in Palmerston North. In 2002 he started with live2give Germany, a not-for-profit organisation for health-related research and education. During his time there, he periodically supported CERES-Cert as an organic certification auditor. Pioneering implementation of mulch systems in vegetable cropping, live2give began distributing a specialised mulch transplanter in 2020 after ten years of development. Tobi is currently trialing the planter in NZ conditions.

LandWISE 2023: Normal Practice Revisited

Havelock North Function Centre 24-25 May 2023

The post LandWISE 2023 Speakers – Soil Health appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

Industry Perpectives

Our group of four Hawke’s Bay industry representatives will discuss the impacts on the vegetables and fruit sectors and the various ways people have responded. How did people react, what were the urgent priorities, and how are people trying to remediate impacted sites? Far too soon to look back at the event that was, this is an update on the event that still “is”. For many there are some long rows ahead, but there is increasing evidence that things can be brought under control.

Brittany McCloy

Brittany is Labour Strategy and Solutions Manager at Apatu Farms and Ex Onions New Zealand. Since Cyclone Gabrielle has been working for the Hawke’s Bay Vegetable Growers’ Association at the centre of the industry response, working on behalf of vegetable growers to collate information and represent the vegetable grower voice in response initiatives and design. 

Dereck Ferguson

Dereck Ferguson is an agronomy consultant in Hawkes Bay.  Formerly the Agronomy Manager for Brownrigg Agriculture, he has over 20 years experience managing horticultural and forage crop programmes.  Dereck is a member of the Vegetable Research and Innovation Board and holds several technical roles on research projects.

Sarah de Buin

Sarah is a horticultural consultant with AgFirst Hawkes’s Bay involved in various industry intelligence projects such as the National Pipfruit Crop Estimate, Pipfruit Farm monitoring, and the What’s Coming out of Tile Drains project. She enjoys using meaningful data, to assist those at all levels of the industry with making educated decisions and driving industry change and success.

Richard Pentreath

Regional Manager at Ngai Tukairangi Trust, Richard is an experienced viticulturist and kiwifruit orchardist. Having experienced first-hand some of the devastation brought by the cyclone, he is well placed to discuss the impacts and how growers are responding.

Soil Recovery

Soil recovery – lessons from the past, lesson for the future
LandWISE Project Manager, Alex Dickson will outline some of the resources pulled together to help growers make first decisions about dealing with sediment and establishing living plants. A consortium including LandWISE, AgResearch, Massey University, Plant & Food, regional councils and consultants in Hawke’s Bay, Tairawhiti and Northland has formed to collect sediment and soil samples for nutrient and contaminant testing. Additional soil sampling and data collection seeks understanding of the new sediments, and to allow a longer-term study of soil and site recovery following a range of management responses.

The post LandWISE 2023 Speakers – Starting afresh appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

We have not had time to analyse all the data yet, so can’t say how the different treatments performed. We are grateful to our friends at On-Farm Research for their help drying all the corn plant material for us! We can confirm harvesting 48 trial plots was a big job and appreciate the extra effort of Alan Palmer from Massey University who came to give us a hand.

Next Steps

We are arranging cover crop establishment and will have some different options for viewing at LandWISE23. We’ll do a post on that soon.

2023-2024 is a “Heinz-Watties year”, and we are working with their team to organise the planting of process tomatoes in our three farm systems – conventional, hybrid and regen. We met Tobi Euerl from live2give who is trialing a vegetable transplanter designed to establish seedlings through thick cover mulches. That will be presented at LandWISE23 as well, and we hope to use that in our regen treatment.

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