Judges were overwhelmed by the high standard of entries in the Fieldays Innovation Competition at Fieldays yesterday.

WORK AND careful management has transformed dealing with effluent from a major chore into a valuable resource for a Whangarei couple.

    FERTILISER SPREADING speed and accuracy have risen for a Timaru dairy farm manager since he began using Tracmap, the company says. Chris Edge, milking 830 cows on 220ha at Pleasant Point, west of Timaru, first had his whole property digitally mapped by TracMap, then six months ago began using the company’s TracLink farm fertility and nutrient management system. Traclink allows use of a computer to order fertiliser and to select the paddocks to be spread. The software interface allows the farmer to note the type of fertiliser to apply, volume, supplier, timeframe for applying it, any notes on application and the area it needs to be spread on.  All fertilizer is applied on the Edge farm Temuka Transport, who until January 2012 relied on Edge noting the required fertiliser applications on a farm map, and leaving it in their letterbox for the truck drivers to collect.  Now Edge nominates paddocks from a computer map, this information being sent directly to Temuka Transport’s GPS systems.  This has greatly simplified the process, Edge says. “Our internet connection is very slow; I can submit an order in 10 minutes, or five minutes if the internet is quicker.” Software allows farmers to…

There appear to be two key issues facing farmers presently: corporatisation of New Zealand farms, as highlighted by the recent Crafar case; and the very real prospect of greater regulation, highlighted by Henry van der Heyden's warning of the need to stay ahead of the game in sustainability.