McCain Foods Green Beans

Planting

Dwarf green beans for McCain Foods were planted in all treatments on the 28th of December. All treatments were planted in beans, Conventional and Hybrid treatments ex. peas, and the Regen treatment ex. cover crop/fallow. All treatments were disc ripped and rolled one month before planting and regrowth sprayed out four days before planting.

We applied different rates of starter fertiliser to each treatment. In the Hybrid and Regen treatments we added a biological seed treatment. All treatments had the same bean variety planted at the same rate. We are grateful to our good friends at Nicolle Contracting for their patience when planting the trial.

As always, we are measuring lots of thing over the growing season. For the beans, we have been particularly interested in canopy cover, soil nitrogen availability, pest and disease pressure, yield and of course, gross margins.

Canopy Cover

We measure canopy cover percentage weekly using the Canopeo app. There was little difference in the treatments until early Feb when the Regen treatment took off, and canopy size increased at a faster rate. This treatment is visibly taller and ground cover is greater than the other two treatments.

The Hybrid treatment has lagged, probably due to some early slug damage. When the pea vine was disced, some residue remained on the surface, a perfect spot for slugs to hang out. We applied slug bait to all treatments to reduce further damage.

Disease Presence

The main disease issue we are worried about in beans is sclerotinia. We have so far applied one protectant fungicide to each treatment to protect against sclerotinia, as well as botrytis (different products depending on treatment).

Earlier in February we noted that there was young leaves wilting, most prominently in the Conventional and Hybrid treatments, however was apparent to a lesser degree in the Regen. A thorough inspection by Ben Prebble (McCain Foods) and Shelley Bath (Horticentre) concluded that we were starting to see signs of fusarium. Diagnosis was through the presence of brown/purple, woody lower stems. Phosphorus acid application is planned to treat the fusarium as soon as we have an appropriate spray window.

Pest Presence

A common pest insect in beans is looper caterpillar. Standard McCain Foods practice is to apply an insecticide to knock out caterpillars, when a fungicide is being applied. There are two active ingredients that can be used, neither of which are friendly to beneficial insects/natural enemies. Early in the month we saw some suspected signs of caterpillar chewing, however there are no threshold values to use to trigger spray applications. The Conventional treatment had an insecticide applied (Karate Zeon), however we held off in the other two treatments, as there were no clear signs of damage.

A leaf damage survey was completed following this, which understandably found more damage in the Regen & Hybrid than in Conventional, however still not visually a huge amount of damage. A few caterpillars have been found. We have been recommended a biological alternative, BioBit (Bacillus thuringiensis), which will kill caterpillars but not any eggs. We will likely need more than 1 application, to control the next hatched caterpillars. BioBit will be applied in the next spray window.

Nitrogen Management

We have been closely following nitrate nitrogen levels in the soil. The chart below shows nitrate-N in the top 30 cm from when the Conventional and Hybrid cover crops were sprayed out, through to mid Feb.

Nitrate-N in the Regen treatment has been increasing steadily since the cover crop was mulched in early October. The levels in the Hybrid treatment have been higher than the Conventional since harvest. This is likely due to most of the residue being baled and removed in the Conventional, vs retained and incorporated in the Hybrid.

A typical bean program includes a side dressing of fertiliser which includes nitrogen. A leaf test in early Feb found that nutrient levels were good in all treatments. In discussion with Mark Redshaw (Yara), we decided that because the canopy in the Conventional and Hybrid was less developed than the Regen, these treatments would receive a late application of nitrogen despite tests saying levels were satisfactory. The intent was to give these treatments a boost ahead of harvest.

The Conventional treatment had 200kg/ha of Nitrabor applied, the Hybrid a half rate of 100kg/ha. The Regen is to receive a foliar nutrient application of Croplift to maintain canopy health and this will also be applied to the Hybrid.

Application was completed via Airborne Solutions drone, to apply accurately over plots.

Next Steps

We are approx. 2 – 3 weeks away from harvest, with a target harvest date of 6th of March. Hand harvests will be completed to determine yield, followed by machine harvest.

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Getting to Carbon Positive!

Havelock North Function Centre
21 – 22 May 2025

In 2025 we’re delighted to bring you a conference with focuses on regenerative crop production, carbon foot-printing, and electrification. We’ll have new technologies to think about and see, we have speakers with proven track records, and we’re looking forward to catching up with old friends and new.

Do we know the footprint of our activities? How do international markets assess them and what will we need to report? We are proud to present Associate Professor Dr Pii-Tuulia Nikula to open the conversation. We’ve done the numbers on our Carbon Positive cropping treatments, and we’ve others talking about what they are doing to address their footprints too.

If we are going to get to Carbon Zero (or better) we need to think about both inputs and outputs from our systems. Can we soak up more than we lose? Which inputs have the greatest impact?

We’ll report on progress and lessons from another year of our regenerative cropping research and on cover cropping and bio-strips. We will present some new tools for growers to assess nitrate levels, soil stability and insect pressure and have examples for viewing at the Horizons Regional Council Field Session. More on each of these soon.

We’ll need energy, of course, but how much can we generate on-site? Is electrification realistic now? Where to in the short to medium term? We are delighted to have Mike Casey of the Electric Cherry Orchard and CEO of Rewiring Aotearoa opening that discussion. We’ll have electric vehicles and a solar array with inverters and batteries available for perusal.

Registration is open

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Going to the Vegetables Big Day Out in Pukekohe was an amazing opportunity for me to meet people and to learn more about the research and innovation taking place in the vegetable industry.

Being able to see the biodiversity strips, native plant pods (insectaries), and cover crops that are a part of “A Lighter Touch”, then hearing about the differences they are seeing with all three working together was a highlight for me. LandWISE also has native insectaries and has planted biodiversity strips alongside our annual cover crops. It was interesting to hear Howe (Balle Brothers’ crop manager) talk about how he expected they would have to spray an insecticide due to an increased number of aphids. However, they left it for two weeks, and the aphid numbers dropped as the beneficial insects controlled the aphid population without the need for insecticides.

Water quality was a major topic of conversation in many courses I did at university. Therefore, it was very interesting to hear about the cultural indicator tool for water quality monitoring. It is used in evaluating the current state of waterways, as well as determining actions needed to improve the water quality. For me this talk also reinforced how important it is for Mātauranga Māori and science to be integrated.

I also enjoyed listening to the career session for students. It was interesting to hear how everyone ended up in horticulture and why they enjoy it. I particularly liked hearing about the experiences and successes of other young women in the industry.

Thank you, Vegetable Industry Centre of Excellence (VICE), for hosting the Vegetables Big Day Out. It was great to be able to attend such an insightful and interactive event. I would also like to say thank you for giving me a VICE internship, as part of which I will be doing Slakes aggregate stability testing and nitrate testing with a Nitrachek device.

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Peas were planted for McCain Foods on the 3rd of October as part of our Carbon Positive trial. This was a week after the target planting date due to wet soil conditions at the end of September.

Planting

• Conventional treatment: ploughed, disced x 2, power-harrowed, peas drilled, rolled
• Hybrid treatment: peas direct drilled, rolled
• Regenerative treatment: not planted in peas

Winter cover crops in both the Conventional and Hybrid treatments were sprayed out early, and the soil stayed wet. The Conventional treatment was encouraged to dry by cultivating to ‘open up’ the soil. The Hybrid, which was not cultivated, remained very wet, making the soil more vulnerable to compaction at planting. The soil was wet enough to leave defined drill lines, and in some places open slots.

We decided not to plant the Regen treatment in early peas. We wanted to avoid driving on wet soil with heavy machinery, minimising compaction, and retained the soil in a ‘restorative phase’ for longer, ahead of planting beans in late December.

Crop Monitoring

The impact of planting into wet soil in the Hybrid treatment was seen almost immediately. Establishment was slower, and the plant population significantly lower than the Conventional treatment.

We saw similar trends in canopy cover percentage, with the Hybrid treatment lower than the Conventional one. The Regenerative cover crop was mulched on the 1st of October to stop the radish component of the cover crop mix from flowering. The residue was later disced in to mix soil with the residue and speed up breakdown. That was not been sufficient to kill the oats in the multispecies cover crop, and the regrowth required ongoing management.

Both the Conventional and Hybrid treatments had one post-emergence herbicide application (Bruno + Quantum). No pre-emergence herbicide was applied due to lack of forecast rain early in the season.

The dry weather through November brought forward our harvesting date. A fungicide application was recommended, but we were too close to the 14 day pre-harvest interval so none was applied. Disease pressure was low so we had few issues.

The dry spring meant the irrigator has been consistently running. Between planting on the 3rd of September and harvest on the 27th November we received 46.7mm of rainfall. The irrigator made six passes and applied approximately 96mm of irrigation.

Harvest took place on the 26th of November, read more in our harvest article!

The post 2024 McCains Pea Production appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

Our McCain Foods peas were harvested on the 26th of November, one week ahead of schedule. The dry spring meant the peas were ready sooner than expected. You can read more about this year’s pea season here.

Ahead of the machine harvest, in each plot we hand harvested all of the pea vines from four 2 x 1m2 subplots. The plants were taken to the McCains mini-viner in Waipawa where the peas were separated from the pods and the vine, and weighed to determine yield.

A subsample of the peas was used to determine the Tenderness Rating (TR). TR is a key factor in determining the price paid for process peas. Generally, a higher price is paid for lower TR peas, as the yield is typically lower. Subsamples were also collected for laboratory analysis, and for drying to determine dry matter content.

Some results!

We are still processing samples and awaiting laboratory results, however we can share the following.

Our Conventional treatment on average produced a paid weight of 5.74 T/ha, and the Hybrid treatment 4.69 T/ha. This is not unsurprising considering the slow start the peas in the Hybrid treatment had (see previous post).

The average Tenderness Rating (TR) for the Conventional treatment was 104, and the Hybrid slightly lower at 96. This means that the Hybrid yielded a higher price per ton than the Conventional.

At this stage, the estimate of income received from the peas is approximately $4290.20 for the Conventional treatment and $3797.50 for the Hybrid. We are still finalising input costs, and will report on margins later in the year. The Hybrid treatment did have a lower cost of production than the Conventional, so it will be interesting to see final gross margins.

Next Steps

We are due to plant our beans on the 28th of December. We have completed our post-harvest operations, which has included baling the vine on the Conventional treatment followed by disc ripping. The Hybrid was disc ripped to incorporate the vine, with the aim of retaining nutrients, particularly nitrogen. The Regen treatment was also disc ripped to mechanically kill the oats which had regrown.

The aim of disc ripping is to attend to any compaction, bury any residues, and level the surface as much as possible ahead of planting beans.

A big thanks!

As always, we want to thank our dedicated operations advisory team for their input into our pea crop.

This includes Mike Flynn, Ben Prebble, Allan Machakaire, Scott Marillier and Renee (McCain Foods), Bruce Mackay (Kraft-Heinz Wattie’s), Gareth Holder (Redloh), Scott Lawson (True Earth), Phil Schofield (Reset Regenerate), Shelley Bath (Horticentre) and Mike Kettle (Mike Kettle Contracting). We would also like to thank Jonny Wilson for completing the disc ripping, and navigating our small plots with very long equipment!

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Earlier this year we learnt of an interesting project focusing on increasing biodiversity on vegetable farms. The aim of this joint project between A Lighter Touch, Vegetables NZ and Onions NZ is to reduce pest insects in crops by increasing the abundance of beneficial insects on vegetable farms, therefore reducing the need for insecticides.

Two suggested approaches for increasing biodiversity caught our attention. Over the last six months, we have been exploring their implementation at the MicroFarm. We are enormously grateful to Olivia Prouse for supporting our biodiversity journey so far. We are also grateful to Richard Mills from Summerfruit NZ for leading the way in Hawke’s Bay, and showing us the importance of just giving something a go! We also extend our gratitude to other growers engaging in this initiative, who have been sharing their experiences.

Mobile Insectaries

Mobile insectaries (moveable pods) aim to provide a source of shelter, nectar, alternative hosts and pollen (SNAP) for beneficial insects. The concentrated areas of SNAP support natural enemies, which can aid in pest control in vegetable crops. The moveable pods can be moved in and out of crops easily during the year.

Following the detailed ‘how to’ guide provided by ALT, with additional support from Olivia Prouse for plant selection, we built four moveable pods. Each pod has native five plants, all selected to flower at different times of the year. The species selected were mainly plants that had small flowers to provide habitat to small predatory wasps and other small insects which cannot feed on large flowers like commonly grown manuka.

We have been monitoring the pods to see what is flowering each month. While there is some maintenance required for weeding and watering, all plants survived the winter and are thriving this spring. We are excited to have species like Pimelea mimosa, which is a native daphne, naturally found only on Te Mata peak, and to have two species of Muehlenbeckia, which provides a food source for NZ native copper butterfly.

Annual Flower Strips

The aim adding annual flowering strips to a farm is to enhance above ground diversity. Again, this increases the diversity of natural pest insect enemies, providing additional pest control.

At the MicroFarm, we had two specific areas that made for good candidates for annual planting strips. The first is along our driveway, an area which is normally sprayed year-round for weeds. The second is under the irrigator guide cable, another area that gets sprayed, particularly in the spring and summer when the irrigator is running.

Using the ‘how to’ guide from ALT, we have planted a variety of annual flowers in these areas to see what might be suitable. In late September, we planted nine 10 m long plots of annual flowers, each with different combinations of species planted. The rest will planted by early December. We have been monitoring what is growing and what is flowering, and are excited to see insects present and a range of different colored flowers along the driveway.

What’s next?

We continue to monitor the moveable pods and annual flowering strips. We hope that our late plantings will persist through the summer and autumn. While not formally part of our main Carbon Positive project, it is a nice supplementary demonstration. We hope to showcase the ALT guides and provide some regional information about what may be suitable to grow (annuals and perennials) here in Hawke’s Bay. Read more about our journey in the latest A Lighter Touch newsletter here!

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Hill Laboratories announced a new commercially available soil test for earthworm eDNA this year. The new quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) test quantifies the amount of earthworm eDNA for the New Zealand’s most common earthworm species, Aporrectodea caliginosa.

The current approach to assessing earthworms is through field visual assessments, which can be labour intensive and requires expert knowledge in identifying species. The new test provides a convenient and efficient alternative for earthworm testing.

The soil test has been calibrated for 7.5 cm soil depth in pastoral settings, rather than the 15 cm depth which is the standard depth for horticultural and arable soil tests.

We have been working with Dr Nicole Schon at AgResearch, who helped to develop the test, and Hill Laboratories to better understand how the test might be relevant within a cropping context.

This month, we completed our six-monthly Visual Soil Assessments in the Carbon Positive plots. As part of this process we sent all earthworms found to Nicole for identification, and soil samples to Hills to test for A. caliginosa eDNA. We hope that these samples will help to strengthen the understanding of the soil test taken to 15 cm depth.

Check out Alex and Nicole’s article in the latest NZ Grower magazine (pg. 48-50) for more discussion, or the Hills technical note for more details.

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In the above picture, you can see our McCain Foods pea crop planted into cultivated (Conventional treatment) soil on the left, and into sprayed our mixed cover crop (Hybrid treatment) in the centre. The golden patch is mixed cover crop residue in the Regenerative treatment plot that was mulched on 1 October. Some of the oats, tillage radish and other species remain alive under the mulch.

To completely terminate the cover prior to planting green beans in December, the Operations Advisory Group has decided to run disks over the plots to mix soil into the mulched residue to hasten its breakdown. They recommend spraying urea and a digester on to the residue first, to support the microbe population increase needed to chew through about 11 t/ha of biomass dry matter.

One of our big unknowns, is whether we can terminate the cover crops using a roller-crimper. Our literature and phone-calls-to-farmers research suggest timing is absolutely critical, and it is unlikely multiple species will be just right on the same day. We found for example, that the tillage radish was setting seed while the oats were not sufficiently mature for crushing. In our Regenerative treatment plots, we decided to mulch the five-species mix to avoid adding a gazillion radish seeds to our already well-stocked seed-bank.

We have also started termination programmes in the extra cover crops we planted. One crop is the same five-species mix as in the Carbon Positive Regenerative and Hybrid plots. Another is rye corn, one has straight tic beans, and one has tic beans and rye corn.

These crops were planted so we can try things without affecting the Carbon Positive plots. We started crushing strips with a roller-crimper on 10 October and will do more strips over the next few weeks. We are also considering mulching some and spraying any regrowth.

The images below show the bruised bars in the cover crops after roller-crimping. The theory is that once plants reach physiological maturity and flowering, they will not continue new vegetative growth if damaged. Bruising is thought better than cutting.

Thanks to TRS in Hastings for providing the tractor and crimper for these trials. We will be demonstrating it working at our Field Walk on Tuesday 15 October at the LandWISE MicroFarm. Everyone is welcome – but please register for free.

This work is being completed as part of the MPI Funded Carbon Positive project, a joint programme with the Hawke’s Bay Future Farming Trust. We a grateful for our industry sponsors and everyone who contributes through advisory groups, being tolerant contractors, and in many small ways!

The post Cover Crop Update appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

This is a guest post from MBIE.

We think it is important that our LandWISE membership is up to date on regulations and are pleased to include this post on our website and in our newsletter. Many farm dams are excluded from the new regulations, but there are many that are covered. Farmers sometimes make big ponds, and we are aware of a few “home-builds” that were actually large dams with significant safety significance! Have a look and check your backyard (and the regulations) if you think you might be included.

Dam Safety Regulations are in force

The Building (Dam Safety) Regulations 2022 commenced on 13 May 2024.

The regulations have been made to improve the resilience and maintenance of Aotearoa New Zealand’s dams, protecting people, property and the environment from the potential impacts of dam failures.

Only classifiable dams are impacted by the regulations. Dams are classifiable if they are 4 or more metres in height and store 20,000 or more cubic metres volume of water, or other fluid.

Background to the Regulations
The Regulations were made by the Government in May 2022 and provide a nationally consistent approach to dam safety. Having a dam safety framework brings Aotearoa New Zealand in line with most other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Since May 2022, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has been working with industry groups and regional authorities to ensure dam owners are aware of the Regulations and provide them with information and resources to support them to meet their responsibilities when the Regulations came into effect.

What do the Regulations mean for you?
If you are the owner of a water retention structure, firstly you need to determine if your structure meets the definition of a classifiable dam (that is, if it meets the height and volume thresholds).

• If you determine that your dam is classifiable, you will then need to determine your dam’s potential impact classification (PIC). If you do not have a classifiable dam, no further action is required under these Regulations.
• Once the PIC has been determined, you will need to then have the PIC audited and certified by a Recognised Engineer, who will work with the dam owner to complete a dam classification certificate.
• Dam classification certificates need to be submitted to the relevant regional authority.
• Owners of dams with a medium or high PIC have further actions they need to take.
• The only additional requirement for owners of dams with a low PIC is to review their dam’s PIC within five years of the regional authority approving it.
• If you own a dam and fail to meet your responsibilities under the law (the Building Act 2004 Regulations), then you may be liable for a fine.

Resources to help you
You can read more about the definitions, regulations, and find resources to support you, on MBIE’s Building Performance website: www.building.govt.nz/managing-buildings/dam-safety/

Included in these resources is the Measuring and calculating the height and volume of agricultural dams resource. This is designed to help horticultural or agricultural dam owners calculate the volume of their dam and understand if they are impacted by the Regulations.

MBIE has also published another resource, the Potential Impact Classification checklist, which is a checklist to support dam owners to identify and collate information for a PIC assessment.

The post New Dam Safety Regulations appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

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 in annual ryegrass, was sprayed out one month ahead of planting, then ploughed, disced (x2) and power harrowed in preparation for planting peas. The Hybrid treatment, which was planted in a diverse mix of mainly black oats, tillage radish and vetch, was sprayed out one month ahead of planting, with the intention of letting the cover crop rot down and peas were direct drilled. The Regenerative treatment was not be planted in peas, and instead left in a restorative phase for an extended period, whereby some of the intensity is reduced from this system.

We ran into some roadblocks in the Hybrid. As the consequence of spraying out early was that there was no evapotranspiration from the crop, so the soil was slow to dry after rain. We didn’t want to cultivate this treatment, therefore didn’t have the option to speed up drying through ‘opening’ the soil. In our ‘dry runs’ with the planter, a distinct slot was created, which would mean the soil to seed contact would not be good. It would also create a nice little home for slugs. To keep with our production plan, we delayed our planting date to get a bit more drying time, so the soil was dry enough for some tilth to be created.

Additional seed treatment

The Hybrid seed was treated with Trichoderma, based on promising trial results from Wattie’s in Canterbury. This was added to the seed, on top of the standard McCain seed treatment. The Hybrid was drilled through the standing sprayed out cover crop, so the residue was anchored, and then mulched after planting. The main concern with leaving the cover crop standing is that some of the tillage radishes had popped out of the ground. If left standing, they could be picked up by the harvester and end up at the factory.

Pūkeko as far as the eye can see

In the days after the peas started to emerge, we found the treatments overrun with pest animals – pūkeko, rabbits, sparrows and pigeons. This is perhaps to be expected, however as each plot is only 0.1ha, every plant is precious! We actively managed these pests to minimise the damage. As a result, we have seen a few more hawks around, which is hopefully deterring some of the unwanted bird life.

Soil Temperature

Soil temperature in the planting line was recorded every 15 minutes for three weeks from planting. using iButton microloggers. Soil temperature in the Conventional treatment (cultivated/bare soil) was consistently higher than the Hybrid (direct drilled/mulched).

Pea emergence

Plant emergence has been monitored since the 24th of September. Four x 1m² quadrats are counted in each plot, each day to monitor the rate of emergence. Plants are counted when the first leaves have unfurled/flattened. The Conventional treatment population is higher and more uniform than the Hybrid, which has been slower to emerge. This is likely to be related to lower soil temperature and soil conditions at planting.

Upcoming field walk

Our next field walk will be at 1pm on the 15th of October. Come along and join the conversation! Register here!

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