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.

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.

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!

The post September 2024 at the MicroFarm appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

What to plant?

First off, what should we plant? I don’t think we have yet got our cover crop mixes quite right. This year, our hybrid and regen treatments were planted in a diverse mix of 7 species (black oats, tillage radish, vetch, buckwheat, sunflowers, crimson clover and Persian clover). This was to get lots of plant diversity over the winter.

A frost in May killed the buckwheat and sunflowers, which meant they weren’t present over the winter. We planted tillage radish as it is supposed to be the “crowbar of the soil” and will break through tillage pans. Unfortunately, our radishes knew better, hit the pan and, in some areas, popped themselves 10cm out of the ground. This is potentially an issue for both the hybrid and the regen treatments, as chunks of radish could be picked up by the harvester and end up at the factory which may be a problem for product contamination.

Additionally, the radish started to flower and was beginning to set seed, so radish if unmanaged, could have become be a new weed species for us.

In this conversation, there is the question of how much plant diversity do we need? Some of the species we are using, might be okay in a pastoral grazing scenario, but could be hard to manage in a cropping system and therefore become a weed for us. In the systems we are looking at, are we able to select fewer plants, that provide functional diversity, without adding added complexity of to the management of the cover crop?

Another consideration is disease carry over. We intentionally avoided planting tic beans this year, as they could carry unwanted diseases into the following legume crops. Tic beans may be an option ahead of other crops.

Do we graze?

One of the five regenerative principles is to integrate livestock, which we have not yet done in our Regen treatment. However we have grazed our Conventional treatment, which might seem a bit backwards. It is common for Heretaunga Plains growers to plant an annual ryegrass over the winter and graze it with lambs, so we are including sheep in our Conventional treatment.

In the last two years, we wanted to use the cover crop as a mulch on the surface for our main crop to keep the soil surface covered, another of our regenerative principles. If we have a mulch on the soil surface, we hope it will significantly reduce the need for herbicides. To do this effectively, we need to grow a lot of biomass, and therefore don’t want to have sheep or cattle grazing it. We don’t really have a long enough winter growing season to do both. This is where we find tension between some of the regen principles when applied to an annual cropping system. We might yet include livestock; however, we aren’t sure what this will look like in practice.

In addition, lambs can do considerable soil damage over the winter. The photos below show the difference between grazing for a couple of weeks in dry conditions and grazing over a wet weekend this winter.

When to terminate?

Ahead of the tomato planting last year, we had a cover crop of oats, vetch and lupins in the Regen treatment. You may remember that we planned to use a modified tomato planter, which transplants seedlings directly into a mulched cover crop, eliminating the need for both cultivation and herbicides. Just before planting, we met two problems with this plan.

The first issue was that the cover crop was still actively growing and sucking moisture out of the soil, so the soil was very dry in the regen treatment. This led to large, blocky clumps of soil forming in the top 10cm of the profile. The second issue was that the timing of maturity wasn’t right for mulching and killing the oats. In a test area of cover crop, we found the oats regrow, and we had very limited herbicide options to deal with this. It might have worked if we had waited a couple of weeks, however we were working with a factory schedule and had a planting date that wasn’t very flexible.

We want to apply lessons from that experience this year. We are already seeing low soil moisture levels and low nitrate levels in the Regen treatment. To manage the amount of biomass we have grown, and stop the flowering radish from seeding, the cover crop was mulched on the 1st of October. We expect the mulching will not kill the oats, and that we will need to manage regrowth.

How to terminate?

We planted a winter cover crop, it has grown all winter, so what next? Our Operations Advisory Group is having an ongoing discussion on how we terminate it in our Regen treatment. The initial plan was to use a roller crimper, but the consensus is that this is probably not quite the right tool for the job. We have since mulched the cover crop, but we will need another action to terminate it (oats weren’t mature enough). We have two options; we either spray out the oat regrowth or we cultivate to bury the residue.

This is an important conversation for us, as the use of glyphosate is not widely accepted by the Regenerative community. But our discussions with no-till or minimum tillage growers, and some of the Canterbury regenerative croppers, show it is an important tool for successfully reducing or eliminating cultivation. Most of the literature indicates that cultivating is the number one thing to avoid if we want to increase soil carbon, which is the main metric in this trial.

Weed management is a key consideration in beans as there are few herbicide options. If the crop is too weedy it won’t be harvested. If we cultivate, we will have to manage weeds through a suite of other herbicides that have the potential to as harmful as, or worse than glyphosate when compared using the Environmental Impact Quotient.

How do we best minimise soil disturbance? Both cultivation and herbicide use fall into the category of soil disturbance. The question for our operations group comes down to what is the ‘lesser of two evils’- glyphosate or cultivation?

More questions than answers!

A key lesson from the last two years, is that cover crops are important. We have also found that cover crop management is quite complex. There are a lot of questions we need to ask ourselves:

The post Lessons from two years of winter cover crops appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

In June this year, I was chosen for one of two teams attending the 2024 International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA) Case Study Competition and Conference in Almeria, Spain. The theme of the conference was Food Security Through Innovation & Sustainability. We were then invited to attend a weeklong food and agri-innovation tour to Bologna, Cologne and then through the Netherlands.

I am lucky to have been in a team with four clever individuals from across the New Zealand Agri-Food sector. Our team included Dan from Silver Fern Farms in Dunedin, Fatima from ANZ in Auckland, Braydon from Perrin Ag in Rotorua, and Katie from Auckland University. We brought a diverse range of skills to our case study analysis, as well as a diverse range of opinions and perspectives on agriculture.

We were incredibly excited to learn that we won first place in our division, with the other New Zealand team coming in second place. Not bad for a little country at the bottom of the world!

While travelling together after the conference we were able to explore food provenance and food culture in Bologna, agricultural research and development in Cologne, and agricultural and horticultural innovation in the Netherlands. We will all be spending the next few months digesting what we have seen, discussed and learnt, and how our experience links to food production back here in New Zealand.

Many thanks to LandWISE (Dan & Phillipa) for allowing me the time away to learn, grow and explore the agri-food sector at a global level.

Applications are open!

Applications are open for the 2024 STAMP intake so if you have talented young people in your business (under 27 at the time of application), encourage them to apply! Click here for more information. Applications close 31st Aug 2024.

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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, and is located in the desert, receiving only 200 mm of rain per year. Despite this, the region is a hub of horticultural production, with 32,200 ha of greenhouses spread across the landscape (3.7% of the total area of the province), as well as around 30,000 of open-air production.

There are 12,500 farms with undercover production which generate more than 110,000 jobs. There are many small growers who are represented by grower co-operatives. In fact, there are enough co-operatives that secondary co-operatives exists which are ‘co-operatives of co-operatives’, for example Unica, which represents 15 co-operatives. The industry prides itself on being leaders in tech transfer to growers of all sizes, and strives for shared wealth creation, and keeping small farmers in business.

The annual turnover in the region is €4.4 billion, plus an additional €1.5 billion from the auxiliary industries including nurseries, R&D centers and suppliers (approx. €6 billion total per year). Given the region’s warm location, growers can achieve year-round production. The main crops grown are eggplants, zucchini, cucumber, tomato, pepper, melon, watermelon and lettuce. In total, 3.7 million tons of fruit and vegetables are produced each year. The first greenhouse was built in 1963 and since then has taken the province from one of the poorest in Andalusia to one of the wealthiest, now ranking above average in Spain.

In 2007 a program was started to implement biological controls in horticultural crops to produce residue free crops. In 2023, Almería had the largest area in the world using biological controls in vegetables, totaling 26,800ha.

Challenges

There are significant challenges to producing food in such an intensive way, and there has been much criticism of the region’s intensive production methods and the impact on the environment.

Water is unsurprisingly a key issue in a desert. Historically water has been extracted from groundwater, depleting underground aquifers. In recent years, desalination plants have been built to provide fresh water through reverse osmosis for both human consumption and irrigation, although water is still having to be extracted from the ground to meet demand.

Plastic use is also a challenge, with the plastic on the greenhouses being replaced by growers every 3 years, however the industry reports that 100% of the plastic is recycled.

The source of the region’s labour supply has faced criticism in recent years, in relation to the exploitation of migrant workers working in the greenhouses.

Netherlands- home of the modern glasshouse

As part of our trip, we travelled through The Netherlands, where we had the opportunity to visit Van der Harg in Bemmel. They grow and pack capsicums/bell pepper in their 8.6 ha of glasshouses. They are also experimenting with growing eggplants. The design of the Dutch glasshouse originated in Den Hague, and there are 10,000 ha of glasshouses in The Netherlands today, which largely grow bell pepper, eggplant, tomato and cucumbers.

The seedlings are grown at an independent nursery and planted into the glasshouse in November. The first fruit is harvested in February. Production lasts until October when the plants are pulled out and the greenhouse is prepared for the next crop. Interestingly, the crop is grown with few to no sprays, however the crop cannot be classified as organic as it is not grown directly in the soil. The plants are grown in ‘cultivation gutters’, where there are understory plantings which are used for pest control, and climate control.

The glasshouse is located in an Agropark, NextGarden, which allows participating growers to reduce their costs by ‘industrial symbiosis’; sharing resources and infrastructure. This includes collective power generation and a biodigester. By-products of the biodigester are captured (heat and CO2) and used by the glasshouses. There is also collective water harvesting systems that delivers clean rainwater for irrigation and processing.

Challenges

There are of course challenges to this system. The process of harvesting is labour intensive, with the labour supply coming from largely from countries like Romania. A robotic harvester has been developed, however must harvest ’27 hours a day’ to be the same cost as a human. Once they reach 24 hours, the human element of production will largely be gone.

Additionally, the strings used for training the capsicum plants are plastic. To maintain production levels they are not able to use biodegradable strings as they are not transparent enough and block too much light. The plastic string is used for just one season and is the major waste product of the system.

This system is energy intensive, particularly in heating over the winter months. However, Van der Harg are working with NextGarden Agropark to reduce or capture emissions, to power the glasshouse in a sustainable way.

Same challenges, different growing system

Regardless of growing system or location, the same conversations are happening globally, in relation to the challenges growers face. Water, energy, ethical labour supply, agrichemical use, and plastics are issues facing farmers and growers regardless of system or size.

The post European Covered Production appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

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.

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:

“I’m thrilled to share that we have taken out first place at the IFAMA 2024 Student Case Study competition in the Early Career Professional category. I’m so proud of my unbelievably talented teammates Katie Henderson, Fatima Imran, Dan Ryan and Braydon Schroder. It came down to the final two, made up of both NZ teams. It’s brilliant that NZ took home both first and second place in Spain this year!

The case study explored the global seed industry, from the perspective of the International Seed Federation (ISF) and asked us to consider how to improve collaboration and communication between stakeholders throughout the value chain, in the face of changing European policy.

It has been a roller coaster of emotions; we are all so grateful for this amazing opportunity. Thank you to FoodHQ, Massey University, AGMARDT (The Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust) for supporting us to get here!“

Their group developed a proposal for a food alliance which was powered by data and a governance model to help the seed industry collaborate and deal with regulatory pressures, such as the EU green deal.

Alex travelled as one of the members of the Strategic Thinking for Agrifood Management Programme (STAMP), and initiative of FOODHQ at Massey University supported by AGMARDT. The STAMP programme focuses on accelerating emerging leaders’ strategic thinking, broadening sector awareness and helping build local and global personal and professional networks.

After spending time in Spain, the group has been travelling, including visits to a number of food producers in other EU countries, and

As Dr Victoria Hatton, CEO of Food HQ noted, “The value of this experience can’t be underestimated. The exposure the cohort have been given to a real world challenge is fantastic. I am so proud of this amazing group of young leaders.”

We share that opinion and are justly proud of Alex’s and colleagues’ achievement.

IFAMA is an international management organization that brings together current and future business, academic, and government leaders along with other industry stakeholders—to improve the strategic focus, transparency, sustainability, and responsiveness of the global food and agribusiness system.

The post IFAMA International Case Study Competition appeared first on LandWISE - Promoting sustainable land management.

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 app. Canopeo allows us to track growth many times without disturbing the crop in our key measurement plots.

We saw that the annual ryegrass in the conventional treatment plots reached a high ground cover percentage faster than the mixed oats, radish, vetch, sunflower mix in the hybrid and regenerative plots which are relatively sparsely planted. By the end of June, there was less difference, and the cover crops are much taller than the ryegrass. We intend grazing the ryegrass with lambs once the soil dries out some! The mixed covers will not be grazed. We will make harvest cuts and determine the actual dry biomass in all the plots before we terminate the cover crops.

We think we are starting to see changes in the VSA tests, generally in a positive direction. Three examples are shown below. But remember, one image from a test at one time of year is not enough to give statistically relevant answers!! What we do see is that annual ryegrass can give good nutty structure quite quickly. Given the different cultivation that the treatments were given before tomatoes, we are not too surprised to see some differences. The hybrid plots suffered from a rotary hoe while the soil was still wet, and the subsequent pan development remains noticeable. The soil moisture was ideal for VSA when we did these in early June, and that will have helped increase scores relative to those we did in wet soil in previous seasons.

Carbon in the soil takes many forms, including mineral/inorganic calcium carbonate, the main component of limestone. The organic carbon components are often thought of as fitting into one of two pools: the “stable” and “labile” fractions. The stable fraction, which may be protected by clay minerals or soil aggregates, or be chemically persistent, takes years to centuries to decompose and to build up so annual changes are very small. Labile carbon breaks down in days or years and is the portion of soil organic carbon that consists of soil microbial biomass carbon, dissolved organic matter, and easily oxidative organic matter. Because it can be readily decomposed by soil organisms, it is the fraction of soil organic carbon with the most rapid turnover times, and its oxidation drives the movement of CO₂ between soils and atmosphere. It is an active source of nutrition and an indicator of change in the soil.

We are sampling all carbon at the beginning, middle and end of the Carbon Positive project. We are sampling for labile carbon a couple of times each year, basically in spring and autumn. We have been taking labile samples to 60cm depth, split into 0-15, 15-30, and 30-60cm bands. These are the very active root zone in the cultivated depth and the area below it, which still has significant root and micro-organism activity. As well as Hill Laboratories’ measurement of labile carbon percentage using the Hot Water Extractable Carbon method, we are determining the actual soil bulk density so we can accurately assess the tonnes of labile carbon per hectare. Hill Labs has a very informative technical note on soil carbon tests.

We also completed the Milestone 7 report which gives a lot of information about the development and outcomes of the process tomato crops we grew with Heinz-Watties last summer. Now we are reviewing our plans for the coming season and making sure things are ready.

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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:

Seeking low environmental impact alternatives to chemical herbicides that can be integrated into a regenerative agriculture system, we developed and tested flat-plate electrode weeding equipment for applying ultra-low-energy electric shocks to seedlings in the field.

Better than 90% control was achieved for all species, with energy to treat 5 weeds m⁻² equivalent to 15 kJ ha⁻¹ for twincress (Lepidium didymum) and redroot (Amaranthus. powellii), and 363 kJ ha⁻¹ (leaf contact only) and 555kJ ha⁻¹ (plants pressed to soil) for in-ground Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum), all well below our 1 MJ ha⁻¹ target and a fraction of the energy required by any other weeding system.

We compared applications to the leaves only or to leaves pressed against the soil surface, to seedlings growing outside in the ground and to plants growing in bags filled with the same soil. No previous studies have made such direct comparisons. Our research indicated that greenhouse and in-field results are comparable, other factors remaining constant. The in-ground, outdoor treatments were as effective and efficient as our previously published in-bag, greenhouse trials. The flat-plate system that we tested supports sustainable farming by providing ultra-low-energy weed control suitable for manual, robotic, or conventional deployment without recourse to tillage or chemical herbicides.

Download the full paper here>

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