Guardian Farming | November 2019

Farming GUARDIAN

November, 2019

Precision

watering Pages 16-19

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Farming

Farming

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EDITORIAL COMMENT

INSIDE

Anyone who has been to an agricultural conference in the past year or two will know that topics no longer centre around lifting production and yields.

Instead it is environmental sustainability and how to meet increasingly stringent PAGE 3-6 water quality, nutrient loss and carbon emissions targets that is top of the agenda.

MID CANTY – FOOD BOWL Farmers have always responded to market signals and are willing to change their systems when presented with a fair and reasonable argument and cost-benefit analysis.

However, presented with the Government’s top down “we know best” freshwater reforms policy, they have rightly questioned its lack of detail and rationale, leading to thousands of rural people turning up to public meetings on the topic.

PAGE 9 It is a long time since farmers have been so united.

It is also in contrast to the Government GO GREEN FOR RURAL agreeing to join forces with farming leaders to develop practical and cost-effective ways to measure and price emissions at the farm level by 2025. Farmers will get plenty of support from industry groups like Beef + Lamb and DairyNZ to ensure that they keep their side of the deal, avoiding the threat of having to join the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Dealing with freeloaders will be the biggest obstacle.

PAGE 16-19 The Government now needs to follow its own example and work with farmers PROMOTING PRECISION and communities on freshwater reform

Heather Chalmers

RURAL REPORTER

on a more catchment-by-catchment basis, something Environment Canterbury has been doing for several years.

You don’t have to look far for examples where Government talk hasn’t been matched by action when it comes to being a good environmental manager itself.

Mackenzie Mayor Graham Smith is now calling for the limited return of grazing by merino wethers on high country land taken into the Crown estate as part of land tenure review.

Despite the Government saying it could manage the land better than the previous pastoral leaseholders, the spread of invasive weeds like wilding pines and hieracium on acquired Crown land is an increasing concern for neighbouring high country farmers. Expanses of long ungrazed grass are an extreme fire risk in the Mackenzie Basin and a potential environmental disaster.

When it comes to any land-based policy proposal, I’d pick a farmer to have a better read on the practical realities, rather than a politician every time.

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Is Canty the next food bowl?

Canterbury is well placed to meet growing export demand for fruit and vegetables as consumers seek a more plant-based diet, with plantings of Heather potatoes, onions and Chalmers apples in the region increasing significantly.

While some growth is a result of North Island growers expanding south, Canterbury has attracted export ventures ranging from a premium cool-climate apple to carrot juice concentrate.

Central Canterbury vegetable grower Allen Lim said that, like the rest of the world, New Zealand’s fruit and vegetable consumption has increased at a faster rate than population growth. “This is due in part to the trend of people eating

more vegetables and less meat for health benefits and to lower their environmental footprint.”

Although horticulture was a $5.7 billion RURAL industry, New Zealand REPORTER barely features globally when it comes to vegetable exports.

Globally, most vegetable production was north of the equator, but that area faced an extremely high risk of water shortage because of climate change, while New Zealand was well placed, Lim told a seminar on changing landscapes in primary production at Lincoln University. continued over page

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Farming

From P3 The seminar was organised by the Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science’s Canterbury section.

While onion production from 2007 to 2018 was about 5000 hectares nationally, Pukekohe plantings have fallen from 3164ha to 2220ha. At the same time Canterbury’s increased from 750ha to 1060ha.

“Much of that is to do with the price of land around Pukekohe and the neverending demand for land to be developed into housing.

Initially, some of that area transferred to Waikato, but as the farming rules in Waikato got tougher, the growers started to move down to Canterbury.”

Potato production in Canterbury has also jumped from just under 5000ha in 2009 to almost 6400ha now, with several new growers.

Canterbury has a 38 per cent share of the process vegetable market, with processors Heinz Wattie’s, Talley’s, McCain Foods and Juice Products NZ all operating plants in the region. Nationally, 14,000ha is planted in process vegetable crops. Heartland Potato chips

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Canterbury’s onion harvest is growing, while Pukekohe’s is falling.

are South Canterbury grown and processed.

An export apple industry has returned to Canterbury, based on the popular United States variety Honeycrisp.

Consumers in the US and Europe are prepared to pay two to three times the retail price of other varieties for

Honeycrisp’s explosively crisp texture and wonderful flavour.

The apple variety currently out-earns any other variety of apple grown in New Zealand for the export market.

While an earlier export apple industry in the region was abandoned, because its cooler climate meant smaller

fruit, Honeycrisp prefers a growing location further south than New Zealand’s traditional pipfruit growing areas.

Bred by the University of Minnesota, Honeycrisp is a genuine cool climate variety, grown around the 45th parallel. In New Zealand, its

ideal location is just north of Timaru, close to the coast.

By 2017, 300ha of apple orchards had been planted in Mid and South Canterbury, near Timaru and at Seadown, Chertsey and Hinds.

“A lot more has gone in since then and I am hearing that someone is looking to put

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Left – Honeycrisp, a genuine cool climate apple variety best suited to Mid and South Canterbury, is sought after by overseas consumers willing to pay a premium.

Right – Heartland Potato Chips are South Canterbury grown and processed.

in another 200ha just out of Timaru,” Lim said.

Iwi-owned Ngai Tahu Farming is also looking to develop horticulture as well as beef grazing as part of redevelopment of its 9400ha Balmoral Forest, near Culverden.

In a trial orchard started last year, it was testing the suitability of four apple varieties, apricots, peaches, almonds, olives and truffleinfused oaks for a potential horticultural venture.

In terms of constraints for exporting vegetables, the biggest one for leafy greens

is shelf life, Lim said. “Most vegetables don’t last long enough to be freighted very far. Most of what is exported now are onions, potatoes, squash, asparagus and capsicums.

“A couple of growers are flying a few boxes of vegetables each week direct into Hong Kong and Singapore. Those customers trust New Zealand vegetables to be safe, good quality and better tasting.”

Timaru-based Juice Products NZ produces juice concentrate from vegetables and fruit. Carrots represent

90 per cent of the company’s production, with feijoa, beetroot, boysenberry and blackcurrant also included in juice blends. “Once processed and frozen, shelf life is not an issue.”

Limited growth is available in the domestic market, with supply and demand largely matched.

“More often than not, there is an oversupply of vegetables because the supermarkets, and growers too, don’t like to have gaps so we all tend to over plant in order to ensure continuity of supply.” continued over page

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Farming

From P5 Increasingly stringent regulatory requirements are also a hurdle, with regulatory tool Overseer not suited to the intensive multi-crop management and staggered plantings of vegetable growing, said Lim, whose Jade Garden Produce business, between Lincoln and Rolleston, is now at risk from urban encroachment.

In conjunction with business partner Robert Lindsay, Lim also last year took over a largescale established telegraph cucumber business, Island Horticulture, near Kaiapoi.

“In horticulture, we need fresh land parcels for crop rotation. Growers take on lease land for different reasons, and one reason is to practise good crop rotation in order to avoid soil-borne diseases like clubroot.

“So, a grower may have established a nitrogen loss baseline on one piece of land, but when they move away from that piece of land, the baseline stays with the land.

The land that the grower is moving to, may have a lower baseline than what they need to grow vegetables on, so the activity is prohibited.

“The rules in Canterbury

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Left – Timaru-based Juice Products NZ produces juice concentrate from vegetables and fruit, mainly carrots, for export.

are also heavily reliant on Overseer as a regulatory tool to be able to model the leaching so that we can show the percentage reduction from changes made to our farming practice.

“Overseer is not able to do that for vegetables for a number of reasons, including: germination, harvest window, yield, bypass, different growing practice between growers and supermarket

specifications which dictate shape, size, colour, taste and texture.

“It also wants to include any break crops as part of the vegetable rotation in that total area. As it is proposed, I cannot rest my land and I cannot take on more land.

“What I can see is that it will force people away from what is good management practice,” Lim, who is a community member on

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ECan’s Selwyn Waihora water zone committee, said. He was chairman for four years and also a member of the Government’s Freshwater Leaders Group.

A key point not fully understood by consumers was that there can be a tradeoff between food waste and packaging, Lim said.

Packaged lettuce lasts twice as long as unpackaged lettuce – about seven days,

compared with three days for unpackaged.

The average household purchases 180kg of packaging a year, of which 67 per cent was recycled or recovered, creating about 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

This compares with 262kg of food waste created annually by the average household, of which 20 per cent was composted, generating 39 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

An opportunity would be to look at growing mini cabbages and cauliflowers.

“Not having to cut them in half and wrap would save everyone money. From experience, I think this will reduce the amount of nitrogen leaching too if we close up the plant spacing.

“There’s significant potential for New Zealand to increase sales of fruit and vegetables to both developing and developed markets,” Lim said.

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As you can see below, a pH at 5.5 seems inefficient and illogical.

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WHAT IS THE OPTIMAL PH AND WHY?

Your soil’s pH is one of the

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“One aspect that has baffled us for years, is the apparent disconnect between fertiliser application and the availability or efficiency of the very nutrient being applied due to soil acidity.“

Almost every element of a fertiliser is represented in the nutrient availability table to the left. When you are spending good money on fertiliser, you should be damn concerned if your advisors aren’t ensuring that the nutrient you are applying is at or near maximum availability. If they are not, you need to ask yourself why not, maybe they have a vested interest in selling more fertiliser?

In the grand scheme of things, liming is relatively cheap, especially when you consider that a shift in pH could potentially double the efficiency of a fertiliser in both the short and long term.

The table to the right indicates this point and goes some way to show how a capital investment in liming may affect your overall and ongoing annual fertiliser spend.

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Farming

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New property trends emerging We are now well into the rural property spring marketing season. In our region, that has brought plenty of activity.

One theme coming through strongly is that those who considered subdividing property in the winter prior to selling may be well rewarded.

That strategy is based on understanding your purchaser and the market. Recent trends locally indicate that farms are more likely to sell to buyers looking to augment an existing property, rather than take over a fully functioning unit.

On that basis we have been advising clients that a 100 to 200 hectare parcel of land will offer more options to more potential buyers than a 500ha block.

For the purchaser, there is also a more manageable capital requirement associated with a smaller block of land. Granting finance of $1 million to $2 million for a smaller block, rather than $7m to $8m for a full economic unit, is a much

Calvin Leen

PGG Wrightson Real Estate

easier decision for your banker to make.

We began talking about this with clients early in the winter, when banks were restricting their rural sector lending criteria. For those intending to sell in spring, subdividing a larger farm into two or three smaller lots provided purchasers with relatively achievable options.

Marketing properties with such flexibility is much more straightforward.

Another notable emerging spring trend is the increased enquiry from Southland farmers looking to move north, into North Otago, South and Mid Canterbury.

Off the back of tightening environmental regulations, they are looking beyond their

There has been increased enquiry from Southland farmers looking to move north, into North Otago, South and Mid Canterbury.

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own patch. In Southland, the regional council and farmers are just coming to grips with the environmental change process and the accompanying land and water plans. They are several years behind Environment Canterbury.

That appears to be encouraging some farmers to exit Southland, heading instead for districts with greater certainty and a more mature market that better understands the new regime.

While most of the region’s

spring rural property activity is focused on sheep and beef farms, the dairy property market is also stirring, including attention on the region’s larger dairy holdings.

Previous to the Government’s amendments to overseas investment rules, offshore interests such as superannuation funds, drove market activity around these large farms.

With those buyers now gone, we are now finding New Zealand-based investors

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increasingly taking notice of the properties, particularly when they are evaluated on the basis of annual yield and return on investment.

Overall then, the rural property market in our region is in a dynamic phase, with several important sales likely to result in the coming months.

Calvin Leen is Mid-South Canterbury and North Otago Sales Manager for PGG Wrightson Real Estate Limited.

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Wear green for rural NZ I’m not so sure that a government deserves a pat on the back for not implementing a dumb idea. Delaying implementing a dumb idea deserves even less credit.

If we are getting all hot and bothered about climate change, then we best focus our attention on finding a commercially viable alternative energy source for the modern human existence that does not involve burning of fossil fuels and releasing ancient carbon.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) that was absorbed by growing grass, converted to carbohydrate via photosynthesis, eaten by an animal, converted to protein, exhaled as CO2 and burped out as methane (CH4) which will shortly break down into CO2 and thus completing the cycle is not the cause or exacerbator of climate change so long as animal numbers remain static.

The climate change issue has been hijacked by the anti-animal agriculture movement and the corporate investors of synthetic food who wish to control the world food supply.

Make no mistake, if a legislative backstop is imposed locking biological emissions from agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2025 we are in. Now, or in five years, makes no material difference.

The Zero Carbon Bill (ZCB) is set to

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proceed unchanged through the select committee process with reduction targets of 24 to 47 per cent. The only way to meet these targets is to reduce stock numbers. Such a target ignores the cyclical nature of methane and is in conflict with the Paris Accord which specifically states that climate change policy should not impact on food production capacity.

The imposition of an ETS on biological emissions will make the New Zealand farmer the only food producer in the world to be taxed on methane from livestock. We are already one of the most efficient producers of food in the world.

Forcing reduction on that production capacity will do nothing for the global atmosphere.

We should all be paying attention to what the ZCB and ETS will cost this country, NZIER and the Ministry for the Environment put various estimates of the carbon credit liabilities for

offsetting of carbon by sequestration in forestry at billions of dollars annually.

It is of no surprise that foreign multinationals are buying up large swathes of New Zealand farmland which will be planted in pine trees to allow the investors to capture and repatriate billions of dollars in ETS revenue, much of which will vanish overseas without contributing to the tax take, will provide very little employment or recycling of revenue in provincial communities and more than likely never end up being harvested leaving us as a country with wilding pine forests.

A group based in the lower North Island has been publicising their concerns about blanket planting of forests by carbon speculators along with asking questions about the inclusion of biological emissions in the ETS and ZCB. They have aptly named their group 50 Shades of Green and they are taking a peaceful march to Parliament on November 14.

Stand with them, support their concerns and stand up for rural New Zealand.

this initiative, please wear an item of green clothing either on November 14, or at the Christchurch Show.

Come on team, let’s stand up for rural NZ, let’s wear green for rural NZ.

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Farming

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Lincoln Uni set for a makeover Heather Chalmers

RURAL REPORTER

After years of financial uncertainty, rebuilding delays and merger threats, Lincoln University is now on its most secure footing in five years, says its acting vice chancellor Professor Bruce McKenzie.

Lincoln was financially secure, achieving better than other universities in terms of research

Lincoln University vice chancellor Bruce McKenzie.

work and was starting to rebuild after finally receiving a $45 million earthquake insurance settlement in May, he says.

“Lincoln is in the best space it is been for five or six years. Most of that is because Lincoln has been financially viable for the last three years.”

McKenzie credited former vice chancellor Professor Robin Pollard for much of the turnaround, saying that “he probably saved Lincoln from a forced merger”.

Through belt-tightening and restructuring, including axing more than 50 jobs and severing ties with its Telford

satellite campus at Balclutha, Pollard had turned around the university’s finances.

Lincoln’s operating surplus last year was $3.2m, making it a “not at risk” institution in the eyes of the government.

In contrast, Education Minister Chris Hipkins was focusing on polytechnics as three-quarters were at risk financially.

Lincoln is one of the most research-intensive universities in New Zealand. It has the highest proportion of income coming from the Performance Based Research Fund at 12 per cent and the highest research

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income per staff member of about $400,000.

While Hipkins changed his mind in August on a forced formal partnership between Lincoln and the University of Canterbury, the two institutions were still working closely together, Mckenzie told

11

a seminar held by the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science.

“Many of the things we put in the proposal to the Government we are still going to do.”

This included a joint post graduate school between the two universities and the three Crown research institutes based at Lincoln, AgResearch, Plant and Food Research and Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research. This would accept its first students from February next year.

A joint master’s degree programme in precision agriculture would also be operating next year, combining UC’s engineering school and Lincoln’s agricultural scientists.

“I don’t know why this wasn’t done a long time ago,” McKenzie said.

Aligning timetables and developing cross credits on courses would make it easier for students to study at both universities.

“So UC students can do some of our applied papers and Lincoln students can go to UC for pure science papers. To

me, it is an obvious thing we should be doing.”

Lincoln and UC were also working in partnership to deliver the children’s university, the first of its kind in New Zealand. The children’s university encouraged seven to 17-year-olds’ aspirations for higher education and to encourage life-long learning.

Numbers were lifting from 200 now to 1000 next year and an expected 2000 the following year.

A rebuilding programme meant the Lincoln campus would look very different in three years, McKenzie said.

Though a longawaited $206m joint

research facility with AgResearch was shelved in February, under a revised plan the two institutions would build adjacent buildings on the campus.

The biggest project was the Science North building, which will accommodate staff from the Burns building.

While AgResearch would build a separate building there would be one café and a lot of collaboration space, McKenzie said.

The Science South development, to replace the Hilgendorf building, would house plant and animal scientists.

The recreation centre was almost doubling in size while work to repair earthquake damage to the historic Ivy West and Memorial Hall was planned to start in 2022.

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So it’s cold this season?

Tony Davoren

somewhat “wetter” (higher soil moisture content) than 2018 through August to midSeptember.

In both years there was a “cooling” period later in September till the end of October.

So there is very little between the seasons.

HYDRO SERVICES

There’s been plenty of comment about the lack of growth and how cold it is and has been this spring.

While Canterbury may not be as bad as Southland, it has been cool (and damp), but is it any different to previous seasons? Remember 2018?

Canterbury is not alone in this cool spring – Southland is way worse (supposedly the worst growth many can remember) and southern Victoria is much the same.

I’ve just spent 10 days in Melbourne and, other than a couple of “out-of-the-bag” 30°C days, it was cool, cloudy and rained the first four days.

The day I arrived, October 17, you could have been standing at Christchurch International Airport with a

Soil temperatures Has it been colder this spring compared to 2018?

Soil temperatures (see graph below), like soil moisture content have been pretty similar: 2018 was a little warmer from mid-September through to early October; 2019 was a little warmer than 2018 in early October; and In both years soil temperatures hovered around 10-12°C and had some pretty regular dips below 10°C (especially in October 2018).

END OF SUMMER DEALS brisk southerly blowing (brrr, it was just 9°C).

Has it been that cold compared to previous years and even last year?

It seemed from about now

in 2018 every cloud was a rainmaker and blocked out the sun for days.

How does this spring compare with 2018? In terms of soil moisture (see graph

above) there has been little between 2018 and 2019 with no irrigation required thus far and we are nearly at the end of October.

This year has sort of been

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14

Farming

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Nitrate issues being addressed Tensions over water allocation and quality are easing as tougher nitrate leaching targets are enforced, but some individuals and organisations still want to push their own agenda, said re-elected Environment Canterbury councillor John Sunckell.

“What we have not been able to achieve to date is convince many, if any, from the other side of the debate that we have in fact done anything.

“We have come a very long way in a short few years and it hurts at times when those who stoke those tensions do not give recognition to remarkable things that have been achieved in this short timeframe,” Sunckell, a third-generation Leeston dairy farmer who jointly represents the Mid Canterbury region, said.

Issues with nitrate leaching were being addressed and reduced. Research was providing tools such as plantain, a pasture plant which reduces nitrate leaching, and the breeding

Heather Chalmers

RURAL REPORTER

of dairy cows with a lower nitrate leaching footprint, as well as more efficient irrigation and improved management.

“Give us some biotech, a few more tools and we will sort biological gases,” Sunckell told a Canterbury branch of the Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science seminar at Lincoln University.

Water was being managed through ECan’s Canterbury Water Management Strategy.

“Water is a public good, no one owns it, everyone owns it, but there is this view of many that they do in fact own it and therefore have rights.

“What we have had in hindsight is probably poor application of rules, or rules that have not kept up with the

Environment Canterbury Mid Canterbury councillor John Sunckell says issues with nitrate leaching are being addressed and reduced.

ASHBURTON GUARDIAN

times, but there have always been rules.”

Sunckell said that in the past decade, the CWMS had developed more appropriate nutrient and water rules at both a zone and regional level.

“With this has come a significant shift in thinking

from our rural and provincial folk as to what is required of them.

“Good news stories are extremely hard to sell into the mainstream media. We can write all we like in the rural media, but unless something changes we are talking in a vacuum.”

Few people outside agriculture know of farmers’ 2009-2013 nitrogen loss baselines and tough nitrogen loss reduction targets, particularly in the Hinds and Selwyn-Waihora catchments.

“So maybe one of the tensions we face is not so much the facts, but the perceptions that some groups would have us believe. I have to ask whether some of these groups have the advancement of their agendas at the forefront of their thinking rather than the communities and environments that they choose to engage in.”

Touching on the quality and quantity of Christchurch’s drinking water supply, Sunckell said modelling showed that in 50 to 100

years, the city’s drinking water could approach 5.6mg/ litre of nitrogen, half the public health maximum acceptable values, if nothing was done.

Waimakariri District farmers now faced some “quite draconian rules” under ECan’s Plan Change 7 which would significantly disrupt agriculture in that district.

“We cannot under-estimate the financial and capital costs that will be visited on primary producers in that catchment.

“The other side of the debate has picked up this modelling with some horror and I would suggest just a little lack of understanding.

“Add a touch of the Danish study that shows the potential for a link between higher nitrate levels and bowel cancer and we have a political nightmare that many candidates across local government ran on.”

Sunckell said that with today’s knowledge and science, the issue of Christchurch’s water quality could be addressed.

www.guardianonline.co.nz

15

Democracy in action In my previous column I spoke about the forthcoming elections and how it was an opportunity to have our say in how we are governed and who the keepers of democracy are.

Well our district has spoken and there was a 55 per cent turnout which was one of the best in the country. It is still concerning though that 45 per cent of voters didn’t bother. You may also be aware that I was one of those elected to the Ashburton District Council.

Environmental matters are now a big issue for farming and local government, including carbon emissions, fresh water and leaching of nitrogen.

Let’s take the Zero Carbon Bill. What concerns me is that a document with the bill shows that the costs to the community would be huge if the targets were achieved. I also suspect that the Government knows that if we achieved such a target it would achieve little, if anything, in the greater world scheme of things.

Our carbon emissions are

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miniscule in world terms.

The heavy polluters of the world, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, do not give a hoot what little old New Zealand is doing and will continue on their merry way.

However, this not to say that we should ignore the situation or do nothing about it. For the sake of being good global citizens and doing everything we can to promote our products and protect our markets overseas we must be aware and acknowledge the world-wide situation.

This bill, like the Government’s freshwater policy reforms, smacks to me of central planning. We know if we look at history that central plans for the economy do not work. How many communist and dictatorial

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states have we seen fail in the past few decades?

Our farmers and businesses are going to be up against it over the next few years as all these things work their way through the system.

Hats off to Federated Farmers for the excellent

meeting at the Ashburton Trust Event Centre.

The meeting was superbly chaired and the speakers were knowledgeable and articulate.

It gives me confidence that we will eventually get more common-sense into the thinking of the powers that

be. Or am I just a cock-eyed optimist?

We need to talk to our elected representatives forcefully and often, so this matter is not forgotten.

Now a question.

Let’s say our council has decided to take a certain course of action over some of these matters concerning the community and has put their proposal out for consultation and submissions from the public. There are about 22,000 eligible voters in this district.

Of those, 9900 didn’t bother to vote.

So, when submissions are called for and the council receives 20 or 30 responses all opposed to the course of action proposed, how much weight does a councillor put on those submissions, bearing in mind that 21,970 voters either don’t care or are happy with the proposal?

It’s going to be an interesting learning curve.

We need to have clear thinking and knowledge on the matter under review and not be swayed by hype and false news.

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16

Farming

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Precision irrigation trial impresses cr Farmers not only have to be efficient users of water, they have to prove that they are, Mid Canterbury mixed cropping farmer Steven Bierema says.

Bierema, who participated in a six-year irrigation research project, said he had not significantly changed his irrigation usage as a result of the trial work.

“The trial and soil moisture probes have taught us to be more precise with water and work with trigger points which reduce the risk of leaching.

“The research trial confirmed what I am already thinking, but now I have proof.”

As his farm had a relatively low water supply of 3.5mm a hectare a day, he had always been careful in juggling different crop demands.

“I have to be careful with our irrigation management and I like that challenge.

“Maybe one or two years out of 10 we are short of water.”

Bierema and his wife Freda farm a mixed cropping farm

Heather Chalmers

RURAL REPORTER

near Rakaia growing cereals and grass seed, white clover, peas and hybrid vegetable seed crops red beet and pak choi, as well as finishing store lambs over winter.

The farm name Somerton Station refers to a former railway station once located on the farm on the corner of Thompsons Track and Somerton Road.

The farm is 95 per cent irrigated by centre pivot and linear irrigators, using water from the Ashburton Lyndhurst Irrigation Scheme and wells.

As part of the research trial, half of the farm was electromagnetic soil mapped, to identify soil variability and soil moisture holding capacity.

This confirmed that Somerton Station had an evenness of

A precision farm map is updated every day to guide irrigation scheduling.

PHOTO SUPPLIED

soil type across the farm, discounting the need for variable rate irrigation (VRI).

“Everybody is talking about VRI, but if you have even soils you don’t need it,” Bierema said.

Rather than a blanket

watering, VRI allows for total control of water applied by varying the system speed or by turning sprinklers on and off as the irrigator passes over a paddock.

This allows a farmer to vary the rate applied across

paddocks to maximise yield, minimise key costs and reduce nutrient leaching and water loss.

Bierema says that rather than using VRI, he changes application rates under each irrigator by

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17

opping farmer Mid Canterbury farmer Steven Bierema is using the latest technology to be more precise applying irrigation water.

PHOTO ASHBURTON GUARDIAN

computer, depending on crop requirements.

“So you can always make a choice on where you put the water. The grasses need more, the clover a bit less and the peas less. It is a juggling act, but we are able to do it.”

While soil moisture monitors are required on farms receiving water from the Ashburton Lyndhurst scheme, of which Bierema is a director, he has since increased the number of monitors on the farm to six after seeing

their value.

“Readings from the monitors allow you to make informed decisions about whether to irrigate.

“You don’t want to overirrigate. It is a fine line whether you are short or you irrigate too much.”

Somerton Station has also embraced other technology, including one hectare of soil fertility grid sampling, variable rate fertiliser spreading and yield mapping on the combine harvester.

“So we get all the data possible to see whether we can justify what we have done,” Bierema, a Foundation for Arable Research board member, said.

“It is amazing how farming has changed in the last few years. Technology has really taken off.”

Farmers are working with the best knowledge of the time, he says.

“I think everybody is on board in realising we have to manage resources as well as possible.

“You have to prove what you do, as the consumer now decides your social licence to farm.

“With climate change you don’t know what weather pattern we will have in the

future and water might be limited. So we have to start being smarter with what we are doing,” Bierema says.

The irrigation research project concluded that the development of promising new sensor technology systems gave arable, vegetable and pastoral farmers the tools to use precision irrigation at sub-paddock scales.

The new technology systems work alongside existing irrigation scheduling technology, mapping and monitoring a paddock at subpaddock scales and calculating exactly how much water is needed at the right time and place. Field trials have proven the technology dramatically reduces water wastage, saves users money and minimises farm run-off.

New irrigation systems over the past two decades have given farmers and growers the ability to accurately apply water at appropriate intensities to a field or block of land.

The MBIE-funded collaborative programme Maximising the Value of Irrigation (MVI), was led by Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, along with Plant and Food Research and FAR. The programme began in 2013 and one challenge

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that researchers were given was evaluating variable rate irrigation (VRI) systems and developing new methods and sensor technologies to inform irrigation control systems.

One group of researchers conducted field trials at Plant and Food’s experimental station at Lincoln. The trials showed a water saving of between 9 and 30 per cent when irrigation was varied according to different crop water demands monitored in different soil management zones at the site.

Researchers used highresolution sensor mapping and in-field soil and crop sensor monitoring systems to assist with the precision irrigation, MVI programme lead and Manaaki Whenua Landcare research scientist Dr Carolyn Hedley said.

This sensor mapping system was trialled on six farms where researchers processed the survey data into management zones to record the main soil differences.

The soil variability was then characterised by physical soil sampling to measure drainage characteristics and how much water each soil zone could hold. continued over page

18

Farming

From P17 “We designed, built, and used wireless sensor networks for near real-time monitoring at irrigation sites and sent this information via a smartphone app to participating farmers to inform precise irrigation schedules and monitor daily crop water usage,” Hedley said.

The new sensor technology and smartphone app were tested in three field trials on a range of different commercialscale farms and showed promising results that saved water and almost completely stopped irrigation-related nitrogen leaching losses.

“In one trial, 150mm of irrigation was uniformly applied to a barley crop over one irrigation season to maintain adequate soil moisture in the well-drained soil zones under the pivot, but a six hectare poorly drained zone was near saturation for most of the season and yields were significantly less (3t/ha compared with 9t/ha),” Hedley says.

Trial results using soil moisture sensing showed that irrigation could have been reduced to this poorly drained soil zone by as much as 60mm, to avoid over-wetting and possibly also increase yield.

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This equates to an unnecessary water cost of $720 per year (assuming $2/mm/ha/year) and a conservative yield loss equivalent to $2400 (assuming a yield penalty of 2 t/ha for the 6 ha zone) so that VRI could potentially save this farmer about $3000 a year at this site.

Alongside the soil moisture research, another group of MVI researchers used remote sensing methods to create a technique for monitoring daily crop water usage, to help calculate how much water a crop is using on a daily basis.

Plant and Food researcher Dr Hamish Brown said that researchers originally tested the technique in a rain shelter for two barley crop varieties. They then applied different irrigation to each crop.

“One crop received a small amount, another a moderate amount and then there was one that was fully irrigated and so we got nice patterns of differences in canopy temperature throughout the season. We were able to combine all our data to create some equations and give a really good estimate of the amount of water that the barley crop was using on any

Programme scientists at the Plant and Food Research trial site and rain shelter at Lincoln.

PHOTO BRADLEY WHITE

given day,” Brown says.

“We then tested our technique outside the rain shelter on a range of crops using different variables. We found that we reduced the water use a little bit in the heavy soil, but in the light

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soil there was a considerable reduction in water use with no yield reduction in the crop, which is promising.”

Researchers found that their method reduced drainage to near zero and concluded that it could substantially reduce

the environmental impact of irrigation.

FAR chief executive Alison Stewart says irrigation is seen as a contentious issue and adoption of the outcomes of this research should alleviate public concerns over potential

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19

A wireless soil moisture sensor in a wheat crop sends data to apps and webpages.

Dr Peter Jamieson (left), now retired, and Dr Hamish Brown of Plant and Food Research test the new sensor technology on a crop at the Lincoln trial site.

PHOTO BRADLEY WHITE

wastage of New Zealand’s natural resources and the risk of unintended environmental pollution.

“Sensor technologies that support growers being able to optimise their water use will deliver multiple on-farm

benefits including water savings and reduced nutrient losses. The effective uptake and adoption of precision irrigation technology will be crucial to maintain New Zealand’s primary sector’s licence to operate.”

PHOTO SUPPLIED

Stewart says that while the industry is well aware of the potential benefits of smart irrigation scheduling, the next challenge will be for farmers and growers to be able to integrate them into their farm business in a cost-effective way.

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Ashburton Guardian Celebrates 140 Years Of Service

BOER WAR, BRITAIN AND BURNETT STREET When Robert Bell strode to work in September 1900, he had a lot on his mind. The world was facing a new century and he’d purchased a partnership interest in the Ashburton Guardian.

It was established 21 years earlier in 1879 and gone through a multitude of owners.

That was to stop with Robert, a Scotsman, who was then manager of the Timaru Herald. Uppermost in his mind was the Transvaal War, later to be called the Boer or South African War. Sieges at Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking had been relieved and the Boer stronghold of Pretoria fell in June, 1900.

Ashburton was bustling with patriotism. Committees were set up to raise funds for “our boys” over there.

to families and their letters were reprinted in the Guardian. Supporting Britain and her empire was seen as the right thing to do by the Guardian and its subscribers.

Robert Bell also had local issues on his mind. The town was growing and there was a feeling of optimism among its people at the start of a new century.

Robert wanted to capture that because, first and foremost, he intended to dedicate his daily newspaper to the community.

He did. By 1902 he owned the Guardian and his influence extended to readers and advertisers who populated the front page. That commitment to Mid Canterbury has extended through four generations of his family to the present Owner/Publisher, Bruce Bell.

The Ashburton Rough Riders wrote home from South Africa

ASHBURTON GUARDIAN IS IN GOOD HANDS Ashburton has been enriched by the number of people born and educated in Mid Canterbury, gone away to experience the world and returned, contributing what they’ve learned to the community.

Assistant General Manager and a director of the Ashburton Guardian. When his father’s health started to fail, Bruce became General Manager at 31.

Bruce Bell, Owner/Publisher of the Ashburton Guardian, is a great example.

“At first I felt very underskilled, but I was a quick learner and surrounded myself with a good team,” he recalls. “The legacy of three generations before me, burdened me and it challenged me to be the best I could.”

As a fourth generation Mid Cantabrian, it was preordained he’d join the family firm and eventually take a leadership role. That was far from his mind when, at 17 and a few months, he started in the front office.

Bruce took classifieds, proof-read the advertising and served at the counter but “the ink didn’t flow in my veins.”

The Ashburton Guardian was his father’s life, not Bruce’s.

“Dad was a deep, logical thinker and a good administrator.

After dinner he’d spend more time working on the paper. For me the job put petrol in the car,” Bruce said.

At 21 he left for London. His OE was overdue. Bruce loved his time away. One abiding memory was journeying 8,500 miles from London to Sri Lanka in a Morris Oxford. With suitcases perched on the roof, Bruce and four companions took eight weeks travelling through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India before reaching their destination.

When he returned he’d changed. “I went away as a boy and came back as a man,” Bruce said. “I realised I was the next generation of family members to run the business. I needed to settle down.” He also realised the importance of The Guardian to its readers.

For nearly a hundred years it was the glue that held the community together. It reported on every major event locally, nationally and internationally. It was the independent voice of Mid Canterbury.

Bruce realised his calling and set out to be the best administrator he could. To manage The Guardian, he had to learn how to run a business, so he enrolled in the New Zealand Institute of Management.

From Assistant Advertising Manager, he became

It can be lonely at the top. Many people will testify to that. Bruce was blessed he had insurance salesman, Bob Elliott, as a sounding board.

The following years were buoyant for the newspaper. Bruce developed a strong commercial sense and expanded the business. Guardian Print, then Inkwise, printing arm of the Guardian, printed over 180 different publications, specialist magazines and catalogues. The Guardian also became an internet service provider.

But he never forgot the newspaper and its subscribers were his core business and an essential part of Mid Canterbury life. He contributed funding to many major projects such as the Ashburton Trust Event Centre and EA Networks Centre.

With the advent of social media, Bruce was keenly aware of changing times in daily papers when huge monopolies purchased newspapers, stifling their independence and often closing the least profitable down.

But not the Ashburton Guardian. Today it’s one of very few locally owned and operated papers. It’s open-minded, even-handed and unbiased and provides a depth of daily information that can’t be found anywhere else.

“Every day I’m reminded of the Guardian’s value. I get tremendous pride when I see the newspaper on my desk and know I have an incredibly talented team to thank.”

The next 10 years, as The Guardian approaches its 150th anniversary, will be a challenge but he’s dedicated to keeping the newspaper profitable.

The ink well and truly flows in Bruce Bell’s veins.

“Tomorrow’s another day, another issue, another milestone on our journey. It’s also one where we want to take you with us”

www.guardianonline.co.nz

21

A valuable part of our biodiversity Dismissed by many as a weedy nuisance, pohuehue, the scrambling native vine often seen along edges of bush and river banks, is a valuable part of our biodiversity.

It also grows amongst gorse hedges along roadsides.

At this time of year pohuehue is conspicuous by its small yellow flowers with a strong scent. Other climbers flowering at the moment are the native clematis, and the bane of many a tramper and hunter, the bush lawyer.

Unlike the pohuehue which colonises open light areas, the native clematis prefers damper conditions and is said to like to have its feet in the shade and sun on its leaves.

At Wakanui Beach, there are four species of pohuehue: the common one often seen along river banks (Muehlenbeckia australis), the prostrate pohuehue (M. axillaris), leafless pohuehue (M. ephedroides) and wireweed (M. complexa).

Pohuehue is host to many native insects; at Wakanui, nine species of moths and butterflies are pohuehue

Mary Ralston

FOREST AND BIRD

specialists, another five include pohuehue in their diet, and other insects also use this group of plants.

The populations of the Canterbury boulder copper butterfly (Lycaena sp.) and the Rauparaha’s copper butterfly (L. rauparaha) at Wakanui are very important The Rauparaha’s copper butterfly was once found from north of Christchurch to South Canterbury, but is now found in only seven Canterbury sites, including Wakanui. So there’s great benefit to retaining the vigorous pohuehue, even ones that are scrambling up old pine trees.

No doubt the larvae of these insects are delicious morsels for native birds.

Pohuehue scrambling over a broom bush in the Rakaia Gorge: these plants are important pieces of our native biodiversity.

PHOTO SUPPLIED

Maintaining healthy populations of pohuehue helps the moths and butterflies and that helps our native birds, including the black-billed gull

and others that are beginning to nest along our rivers and the coast.

Controlling gorse, broom, pine trees and old man’s beard

(an introduced clematis) is necessary in some situations but let’s be mindful of any pohuehue climbing over them.

Pohuehue is valuable not just as a host to insects that are food for birds, but it is important for reducing the light at the edge of the bush or river and that discourages the weedy species such as old man’s beard, gorse and lupins.

Shade encourages a different suite of species to germinate, such as coprosmas that have evolved to establish under a canopy of shrubs or forest trees.

Weeds can be an issue where we have cleared land with no regular cultivation or grazing, such as along riversides and fencelines. These areas are often prone to nuisance weeds, but a blanket spray is likely to be detrimental to the longterm goal of low-maintenance management – so let’s keep the pohuehue!

This will encourage other natives to establish underneath, discourage lightloving weeds and provide habitat and food for native insects and birds.

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22

Farming

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The benefits of newspaper mulch We’ve all experienced it. One day the garden is looking just fine and all the weeds are under control, and the next day, you turn around and your neat rows of vegetables or garden beds are suddenly crowded with weeds.

You get the garden off to a good start, but in the heat of summer, after a long day at work, you just don’t want to pull or hoe all those weeds or spend hours every night watering.

Fear not. Here’s a way you can knock those weeds down and keep your gardens moist.

This method doesn’t involve chemicals that may harm your plants, or cause health problems for your family. It’s cheap and easy.

What you need are a lot of newspapers. And the good news is a steady supply is readily available locally for FREE. Pick them up from the recycling drop-off at the Ashburton Resource Recovery Park.

If the weeds are really tall, walk over them to lay them down against the ground and wet the area thoroughly.

Do the right thing

Sheryl Stivens

ECO EFFICIENCY

Then open up a section of the newspaper and place it right on top of the weeds. Each large rectangle of newspaper should be about six to 10 pages thick. Place newspapers over all the weeds, overlapping the edges so that light (and weeds) can’t get through.

Either wet the newspaper before laying out or wet thoroughly once laid out.

When the wet ground is covered with wet newspapers, add a nice, thick layer of straw, lawn clippings, pine bark or wood chip mulch – about 5-7cm thick – over the papers so the next windstorm won’t pull the pages up.

That’s it! You’re done.

The newspaper mulch will not only keep the weeds down, it will also save water,

Newspaper mulching is good for the garden and the gardener.

fertilise the soil and add organic material to your soil.

Earthworms will be active underneath the newspaper, aerating the ground and adding worm castings, which is pure gold for plants.

The really nice thing about newspaper mulching is that when all the newspapers are down with the mulch on top,

the garden looks incredibly tidy and clean, and it will stay that way for months.

Occasionally a tough perennial weed might poke through the mulch, but if and when that happens, move some papers out of the way, dig out the weed, cover up the space with an extra square of newspaper and cover with

mulch again.

If your garden is crowded with crops, leave the papers folded. You also can tear the newspapers to slide them around the stems of your plants before covering with mulch.

Newspaper mulch is great for the garden and the gardener.

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23

A passion for holstein friesians A young North Canterbury man will represent New Zealand at an international gathering of dairy farmers in Switzerland.

Robbie Wakelin, 28, has been selected to attend the 15th World Holstein Friesian Federation Conference in Montreux.

He was one of a record 17 people who were vying for the fortnight-long trip, which is being funded by Holstein Friesian NZ. “It’s a really humbling experience to have been selected to be part of the New Zealand delegation,” he said.

“It will be an exceptional opportunity to meet other breeders and visit some of Switzerland’s top holstein friesian herds.”

Robbie and his brother John run a 300-cow, split-calving dairy farm in Rangiora. The 95-hectare property is owned by a family trust.

“John was probably secretly hoping that I wasn’t picked for the trip,” laughed Robbie.

“It’s next March and a number of our top cows are due to calve while I’m away.”

Robbie is passionate about genetics and breeding efficient, high-producing cows with exceptional udders.

The herd’s production averages 550-600 kilograms of milksolids per cow.

“We don’t have a feedpad, but

Rangiora dairy farmer Robbie Wakelin has won a trip to the World Holstein Friesian Federation Conference in Switzerland next March.

PHOTO SUPPLIED

we do have a feed system in the milking shed where cows receive a high-energy blend,” he said. Robbie and John usually rear 60-70 replacement heifer calves on nearby lease blocks.

The brothers are trained artificial insemination (AI) technicians and the business has an embryo transfer programme.

“We’ve been importing high-quality embryos from Canada to implant in our cows for the past five or six years,”

Robbie Wakelin’s love of showing and breeding holstein friesians started when he was a primary school lad.

he said. “It’s a key part of our breeding strategy.”

The herd’s pedigree holstein friesians are registered under Belbrook Holsteins.

It’s the leading herd in New Zealand for having the highest number (120) of excellent cows, according Holstein International magazine.

The herd’s “E” bloodline is littered with production champions, long-life cows and show ring superstars.

“We’ve done a bit of embryo work on our E family, starting with the late Belbrook Talent Elspeth EX3,” he said.

“We’ve had some promising results. A few heifers from that family have been performing better than our imported genetics.”

Robbie’s long-term goal is for one of his bovine beauties to be named champion cow at the New Zealand Agricultural Show in Canterbury.

He’s taking a team of eight cows and four heifers to next month’s show.

His love of showing began in primary school, when his late father Trevor Wakelin bought a cow named Cresslands Ambition Dalia EX4.

“Showing Dalia’s first calf ignited my passion for cows and the holstein friesian breed in particular,” he said.

Robbie doesn’t just show cattle, he’s also a trained judge.

He became an associate judge in 2008, when he was

16. He’s judged at several shows, on-farm competitions and club competitions.

The active member of the HFNZ Canterbury branch has won the coveted Pitcairn’s Trophy twice.

The trophy’s awarded to the winner of the Holstein Friesian NZ junior judging competition, which will be held at next month’s New Zealand Agricultural Show.

“I’d urge people to enter and have a go,” he said.

“Knowing how to assess a cow’s physical traits, like the structure of her udder, rump width and legs, is an important skill to know.

“They’re skills I use every time I select a bull to use over a cow at mating.

“You want to produce a calf that doesn’t have the cow’s faults,” he said.

Farming sustainably is also a key focus for the young farmer.

“I want to continue improving soil microbe activity, lowering fertiliser application and mineralising our soils,” he said.

“I believe the likelihood of lower stocking rates presents a big opportunity for the holstein friesian breed, where cows have higher individual production.”

The World Holstein Friesian Federation Conference takes place every four years.

Robbie’s trip will run from March 14 to 29.

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