Tuesday, 03 May 2022 07:55

Plantain can reduce N leaching

Written by  Staff Reporters
DairyNZ's Francesca Bennett with plantain. DairyNZ's Francesca Bennett with plantain.

Trials are showing that plantain has the potential to reduce nitrate leaching by more than 20%, says David Burger, DairyNZ general manager sustainable dairy.

He made the comments after visiting the Tararua Plantain Project last week with Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor.

The project is a DairyNZ-led project working with partner organisations, local farmers and the local community to improve water quality.

It supports farmers in adopting plantain on their farms, testing the benefits in local pastures and sharing the lessons with other farmers. Project partners are DairyNZ, Agricom, MPI, Fonterra and Nestlé. Delivery partners include AgResearch, Horizons and Massey University.

Burger says plantain in pastures is showing great promise to improve waterways by reducing nitrate leaching.

"This project has community at its heart as it seeks environmental improvements," he says.

Burger says farmers involved in the project care about their local waterways and have improved their streams already through their own ongoing farm actions.

"It aims to ensure the dairy sector continues as an economic pillar within the local community. Plantain is a potential solution New Zealand wide."

The project has so far attracted 66 dairy farms in the Tararua District in Wairarapa.

It is likely more farms will adopt plantain this autumn (2022), though the numbers are yet to be confirmed.

Burger says these farmers are incorporating plantain on their farms and helping scientists assess the benefits and practice change needed.

"We aim to have 118 farms involve in this project. Monitoring programmes have been set up by DairyNZ on several participating Tararua dairy farms to measure plantain productivity and report on Tararua water quality.

"The Tararua Plantain Project builds on the findings of a DairyNZ-led cross-sector research programme, forages for reduced nitrate leaching.

"This programme showed plantain has the potential to reduce nitrate leaching by more than 20%."

Water Project

The Tararua Plantain Project water quality day was held last week at Norsewood.

DairyNZ says the day was about sharing dairy farmers' contribution to improving water quality and hearing from others including iwi on how the whole community can play a role.

Invitees include Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor, Tararua District Mayor Tracey Collis, DairyNZ, Mavis Mullins (project chair and part of the local hapu), hapu representative Hone Morris, Horizons WQ scientist, Mike Patterson.

More like this

DairyNZ plantain trials cut nitrate leaching by 26%

DairyNZ says its plantain programme continues to deliver promising results, with new data confirming that modest levels of plantain in pastures reduce nitrogen leaching, offering farmers a practical, science-backed tool to meet environmental goals.

Featured

Australia develops first local mRNA FMD vaccine

Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.

NZ household food waste falls again

Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.

Editorial: No joking matter

OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.

National

All eyes on NZ milk supply

All eyes are on milk production in New Zealand and its impact on global dairy prices in the coming months.

Machinery & Products

Leader balers arrive in NZ

Officially launched at the National Fieldays event in June, the Leader in-line conventional PRO 1900 balers are imported and distributed…

JDLink Boost for NZ farms

Connectivity is widely recognised as one of the biggest challenges facing farmers, but it is now being overcome through the…

New generation Defender HD11

The all-new 2026 Can-Am Defender HD11 looks likely to raise the bar in the highly competitive side-by-side category.

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Full cabinet

OPINION: Legislation being drafted to bring back the controversial trade of live animal exports by sea is getting stuck in the…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter