Friday, 04 September 2020 08:57

Sustainable Vegetable Systems receives $4.7m

Written by Staff Reporters

font size decrease font size increase font size
Print
Email

Potatoes NZ chief executive, Chris Claridge.

A project to boost vegetable growers’ environmental efforts has received funding from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).

The funding is in addition to $2.8 million already invested by industry into Sustainable Vegetable Systems (SVS), a four-year project focused on improving crop nutrient management for the growing of potatoes, onions, brassicas, butternut squash, carrots, and leafy greens.

MPI is investing in the project from the Productive and Sustainable Land Use package, aiming to promote farming and growing practices that deliver more value and improved environmental outcomes.

The SVS project was established by Potatoes NZ, partnering with Horticulture New Zealand and vegetable groups Onions New Zealand, Vegetables New Zealand, Processed Vegetables New Zealand, and NZ Buttercup Squash, under their umbrella of the Vegetable Research and Innovation Board.

“This project will give growers the ability to accurately manage nutrient flows, while meeting demand for quality produce, meaning better environmental outcomes,” says Potatoes NZ chief executive, Chris Claridge.

MPI’s director for land, water and climate policy, Charlotte Denny says having robust tools to measure their environmental impact will help growers operate more efficiently and reduce nitrate leaching.

“This is an important industry-led programme, and the scientific data gathered will inform and help develop decision tools for growers to support more sustainable growing practices”, says Denny.

Plant & Food Research is undertaking the work to quantify and model nitrate leaching. The project will engage with vegetable growers around New Zealand, providing tools to help them apply effective nitrate management techniques suited to their land and operations.

The Sustainable Vegetable Systems project will have nine commercial field sites across the country in Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay, Horowhenua, Waikato and Pukekohe as well as trials at Plant & Food Research facilities in Lincoln and Hawke’s Bay.

“This project will enable growers to assess which management techniques will best reduce their risk of nitrate leaching, so they can confidently make changes in practice,” says Claridge.

More like this

No outbreak, says MPI

Stuart Anderson, Ministry for Primary Industries Mycoplasma Bovis Programme Director, is assuring farmers that a recent increase in confirmed infected farms is only to be expected at this time of year.

Bovis Nightmare

The mental anguish of dealing with bureaucracy is the hard part of managing a Mycoplasma bovis infection, says Mid-Canterbury farmer and self-appointed advocate for the victims, Duncan Barr.

A dangerous precedent

A proposal by the Timaru District Council (TDC) to extend setbacks in rural areas is raising eyebrows.

Why are animals mistreated?

There's been a spike in recent weeks of people appearing before the courts on charges of mistreating farm animals.

New rules for live exports

MPI is toughening up the requirements for the export of live animals from New Zealand.

Featured

Ahuwhenua Trophy's inaugural hort winner

The winner of the inaugural Ahuwhenua Trophy Excellence in Māori Horticulture Award 2020 is Te Kaha 15B Hineora Orchard.

Mayors give government plan to ease seasonal worker shortage

Hastings District Council has given the government a plan to address the seasonal labour shortage faced by the horticulture and viticulture sectors due to Covid-19.

Lely offerings for the future

Dutch robotic specialist Lely launched a new farm management application called Horizon at its recent Future Farm Days 2020.

Designed to connect data from a range of on-farm equipment and suppliers into one management system, it creates a real-time decision-support platform, to make the farmer’s life easier, the herd healthier and the farm more profitable, says Lely.

Developed over a 24-month period, with over 100 test farmers in seven countries, working with 75 engineers, designers, farm management advisors, veterinarians and AI specialists, the new application will eventually replace the current Lely T4C management system. It uses smart algorithms and the cloud to deliver data that is processed into actionable information that is always accessible on any device in a user-friendly way.

Lely claims the Horizon application unburdens farmers from routine decision making and helps them optimise their workloads, using integrated routines based on easily scheduled cow ‘touches’, create logical and more efficient workflows. It is also possible to assign a certain task to an employee and to schedule a time slot for the cow touch, rather than analysing different reports and filtering long lists.

Horizon is also able to connect and combine data from non-Lely sources into a complete solution for the farmer removing the need to enter the same data twice, while scrutinising individual data streams in different applications will no longer be necessary. Currently, connections with farming applications such as Dairy Comp, Uniform-Agri, CRV and Herde already enable farmers to synchronise information about calving and inseminations between applications. Lely’s ambition is to connect with more partners over time, to hand the farmer more smart data.

To ensure full support in the migration to Lely Horizon, existing Lely T4C customers will be personally informed by their Lely Center before the end of 2020.

The migration is planned in a phased approach, from country to country, over the year 2021.

Also launched at the event, Lely Exos is an autonomous concept for harvesting and feeding fresh grass to the herd.

The company suggests that feeding fresh grass makes better use of available roughage, suggesting “fresh” has between 10 and 20% more nutritional value than grass silage, as there are minimal losses typically seen during mowing, tedding, raking, harvesting and feeding.

Lely suggests that feeding fresh grass over an extended season reduces the amount of silage that has to be conserved, reduces the need for concentrates and bought-in feed and increase the margin made on each litre of milk produced.

Based around an all-electric vehicle that mows and feeds, Exos is light weight and uses soil friendly technology, that can be exploited throughout the growing season. Design to work 24/7 as feed requirements change, the system places no constraints on labour or time, while it is also designed to work in tandem with the Lely Vector automatic feeding systems.

In operation, Exos also collects field data as it goes about its job, giving framers live data on grass supply and lending itself to a further concept of delivering a targeted liquid fertiliser as it passes over a harvested area.

Goat farming on the rise

Dairy goat milk processors, looking to increase their supplier numbers, are helping to drive interest among farmers in New Zealand’s growing goat milk industry.

TB fight goes on

The total number of TB-infected herds in Hawke’s Bay has risen to 20, following the recent reclassification of a new herd in the Waitara Valley.

Milking cows behind the barbed wire

A recent field day at the Waikeria Prison Farm near Te Awamutu offered farmers the chance to see what goes on “behind the wire”, alongside introducing the idea of farmers employing offenders near the end or after the term of their sentences.