Wairoa Mayor: Road upgrades between Napier and Wairoa will boost safety and accessibility
The road between Napier and Wairoa is on the mend.
A study examining the recovery of land covered by silt during Cyclone Gabrielle last year could provide critical insights on how to manage recovery from the storm.
Hawke’s Bay researcher Alan Kale says the study was aimed at growers and supporting their recovery as well as the recovery of the land.
“We found that land covered by sludgy clay-based silt could grow good vegetable and arable crops in the next season, with minimal additional effort,” Kale says. “However, the story was considerably different for land covered by sandy silt. Crops grown on this land did not thrive.”
He says the idea of the study was to create a body of knowledge that could be used both immediately and in the aftermath of a future, similar flooding event.
“We believe we have achieved this outcome,” Kale says. “However, we also believe that there is more work we could do to aid understanding, if there was funding to extend the study for another couple of years.”
The study, which Kale worked on with colleague Diana Mathers, looked at the recovery of silt-covered land at 34 different sites in Hawke’s Bay, Wairoa, Gisborne and Tolaga Bay.
It was managed by the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) with funding from the Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI) North Island Weather Event Fund, and Vegetable Research and Innovation (VR&I).
“We’d like to thank all participating growers for their openness and willingness to give freely of their time and knowledge, at a time when they and their families were enduring extreme physical, financial and emotional impact,” says Kale.
The CEO of Apples and Pears NZ, Karen Morrish, says the strategic focus of her organisation is to improve grower returns.
A significant breakthrough in understanding facial eczema (FE) in livestock brings New Zealand closer to reducing the disease’s devastating impact on farmers, animals, and rural communities.
Farmer co-operative LIC has closed its satellite-backed pasture measurement platform – Space.
OPINION: The case of four Canterbury high country stations facing costly and complex consent hearing processes highlights the dilemma facing the farming sector as the country transitions into a replacement for the Resource Management Act (RMA).
The 2024-25 season apple harvest has “well and truly exceeded expectations”, says Apples and Pears NZ chief executive Karen Morrish.
Through collaborative efforts with exhibitors, visitors, and industry partners, Fieldays says it is reaffirming its commitment to environmental responsibility with new initiatives for 2025.
OPINION: The Greens aren’t serious people when it comes to the economy, so let’s not spend too much on their…
OPINION: PM Chris Luxon is getting pinged lately for rolling out the old 'we're still a new government' line when…