Don Linklater Memorial Bursary applications open for 2024
Applications have now opened for the Horizons Regional Council Don Linklater Memorial Bursary.
Last week two international students joined the Horizons Regional Council’s pest plant team to go on the hunt for bio-control insects.
Horizons environmental officer plants Neil Gallagher says bio-control is a technique used worldwide to restore balance between a weed and the environment by recruiting some of its key natural enemies.
“Pest plants that have been introduced to New Zealand are often not considered a weed in their home country because there are bio-agents there to control them,” he says.
“If it can be determined what these agents are, they can be released in key areas to help fight against weeds such as California thistle, nodding thistle and woolly nightshade. Our team has been active in getting bio-agents established in the Region so were more than happy to host students studying bio-control.”
Horizons staff took student Darwin Hickman from the University of Birmingham and Cecilia Falla-Mata from Guatemala to sites where a number of bio-control beetles, flies, and bugs had been released.
“Our team is really keen to learn everything we can about bio-control. So while assisting Darwin and Cecilia with their visit and helping them collect data, we were also soaking up any new information they could share in order to increase the success of the programme,” says Gallagher.
“We took the students to Pohangina Valley, Ohingaiti, and Utiku and were pleased to find thistle bio-agents had taken a noticeable toll on pasture weeds. In particular the Pohangina site showed at least 50 per cent of thistles were damaged by green thistle beetles and reducing the amount of thistle present.”
Gallagher says New Zealand’s bio-control programme is recognised internationally as being an efficient, safe, and robust system.
“The impressive thing about our programme is that using bio-agents hasn’t impacted negatively on our native plants or agricultural and horticultural crops. This is one of the reasons why students are coming here to see how things work.”
The low unemployment environment is one of the key factors driving on-farm salaries higher over the past 24 months, says Rabobank general manager for country banking Bruce Weir.
Fonterra has appointed a new chief financial officer, seven months after its last CFO’s shock resignation.
A seminar on rural dispute resolution has been organised at Lincoln University, Christchurch this month.
The legacy of Dr Peter Snow continues to inspire as the recipients of the 2023 and 2024 Peter Snow Memorial Awards were announced at the recent National Rural Health Conference.
One of Fonterra’s global customers, Mars is launching an ambitious sustainable dairy plan to work with dairy farmers and cut emissions by 50%.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand chief executive for the past eight years, Sam McIvor is heading for new pastures at Ospri, which runs NZ’s integrated animal disease management and traceability service.
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