Australian teams to help repair North Canterbury irrigators after storm
Moves are afoot to get a team of Australians over here to help repair North Canterbury's irrigation machinery, ravaged by the big windstorm of late October.
The Bucket Test app is another addition to the CropX toolkit, says Eitan Dan, managing director of CropX New Zealand.
Irrigation NZ and global farm management company CropX have established a joint venture agreement for the Bucket Test app.
The app is an irrigation efficiency tool that has been used thousands of times to determine application depth, rate and how uniformly water is being applied during an irrigation event. The simple method is based on collecting irrigation water in strategically placed buckets and measuring water collected over a period of time.
The app is used to collate this data and walks you through the steps to collect all relevant inputs, then provides the results instantly to your phone or smart device and e-mails a summary report.
“The Bucket Test app is another addition to the CropX toolkit,” explains Eitan Dan, managing director of CropX New Zealand.
“We’ve seen farmers in many countries crying out for an accurate way to measure irrigation efficiency, so the app offers a ready-made solution that we can now bring to them.”
The Bucket Test works well alongside CropX’s patented Soil Sensor which is embedded with their sophisticated, yet easy to use digital platform.
Eitan acknowledges that as environmental legislation and consumer expectations are tightening the screws on New Zealand farmers, there is an urgent need to measure environmental impacts and increase efficiency.
Having originally developed the app with Regen, Irrigation NZ is excited to work with CropX to further develop the tool.
“We’re very proud of the work we’ve done with Regen to develop a tool that takes the guesswork out of assessing irrigation infrastructure performance,” says Vanessa Winning, chief executive of IrrigationNZ.
“It’s been used thousands of times since development with great outcomes. CropX’s expertise means we will be able to improve the app even further and deliver greater value to our members,” says Winning.
Ashleigh Gordon and Leilani Lobb have been named as the two finalists for Dairy Women's Network's (DWN) 2026 Regional Leader of the Year Award.
Animal and Plant Health New Zealand (APHANZ) says the approval of a new fungicide seed treatment is a positive, however growers will be hoping the final approval is completed ahead of the spring season.
North Canterbury farmer Adam Williamson has been appointed DairyNZ's associate director for 2026-27.
Fonterra farmers are set for a multi-billion-dollar payout this week.
The 2026 Holstein Friesian NZ Young Breeders Development Programme is off to a strong start, with this year's intake coming together for their first event on March 18 and 19.
State farmer Pāmu (Landcorp) has announced it will pay a $10 million special dividend to the Crown off the back of a strong outlook for the business and a capital repayment of $9.5 million following Fonterra's consumer business sale.
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