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Research And Development
Seventy-six years is a long time to be a quiet observer to the fertiliser industry. Back in the 1950s, Hatuma watched as the scientific community started down the path of agricultural intensification with promises of national prosperity, by applying high rates of watersoluble nutrients to boost pasture growth. Over the 1960s, as poor quality caused breakages in the wool and consequently the market price to slump, Hatuma waited for common sense to prevail, and started manufacturing an environmentally-friendly fertiliser, dicalcic phosphate.
Hatuma waited through the 1970s too, but it seemed that more and more high-analysis fertiliser was being applied, despite its inefficiencies becoming exposed. The 1980s came along and while Hatuma was selling its millionth tonne of dicalcic phosphate, advisors were still busy telling farmers to keep up their superphosphate applications, regardless of farming hitting a major low with skin and bone hanging in the freezing works. The 1990s arrived with promises of change, but all that seemed to change were the different forms of high-analysis fertiliser available to farmers, and the degrading quality of some of the country’s prestigious waterways. Still Hatuma waited.
The most incredible thing to come out of all this was that while the advisory system was telling farmers to do one thing, there was a core group of a few thousand farmers in the North Island quietly heading down a different path and remaining very productive year after year. What Hatuma was really waiting for was the scientific community to look at these farms and the management systems and use their inherent curiosity and research talent to ascertain just how these farmers were, and still very much are, achieving satisfying production on seemingly minuscule nutrient inputs.
There could be a multitude of reasons why they never
took the lead from these farmers. Why they never took the
opportunity to consider how these farms, some for decades, were applying less than half the recommended rates of phosphate, yet still topping lamb sales and winning awards for wool quality. How they could grow clover over a wide range of soil types and slopes on the farm and maintain it, despite Olsen P levels at the same single-figure level their grandparents left it in. How farmers could fatten more stock on less land through better pasture utilisation. The scientific community never took the chance to embrace change by using these savvy farmers as case studies to create a far more efficient and sustainable farming system for a future that would be demanding low-cost, low-input, high-quality produce.
Early in the new millennium, Hatuma stopped waiting.
Under the guidance of an independent scientist, the Hatuma Research and Development Programme commenced and within two years the preliminary results were showing Hatuma dicalcic properties could consistently, year after year, maintain optimum phosphate in the herbage, despite lower-than-industry recommended phosphate levels in the soil.
They also showed Hatuma’s dicalcic properties had 50% more earthworms in their soil compared to the neighbour through the fence using high-analysis fertilisers. In 2006, Hatuma employed it’s own Pedologist to continue the programme, looking at the full spectrum of plant and soil indicators on a diverse selection of soil types, farm types, and locations, as well as establishing a three-year monitoring programme to observe change in new situations. Improved physical conditions such as root depth and structure, as well as biological elements like fungi and bacteria, were far more evident than the recommended norm.
Probably the biggest breakthrough came in the high amount of organic matter consistently present in these soils. The future of farming was emerging.
In 2008 Hatuma decided to raise the bar again and called
upon the expertise of the AgriBusiness Group, a founding
partner in Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability,
(ARGOS), a joint venture with both Lincoln and Otago
Universities. ARGOS has a mandate to examine the
environmental, social and economic sustainability of New
Zealand’s farming systems. |
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Achieving a better understanding of the environmental effects and the social and economic consequences of different farming practices will help New Zealanders and their land-use systems achieve more appropriate and enduring accommodations with the New Zealand environment, as well as continue to satisfy the demands of market and community stakeholders. Northland’s Avoca Lime Company also became a partner in the research programme.
Summary of Methodology
Dr. Jayson Benge of the AgriBusiness Group, who has a
soils-based PhD, continued Hatuma’s monitoring programme in 2008. Jayson sampled nine farms in the lower North Island in a range of geologies, climate, and soil types. At each farm, dicalcic sites (areas within paddocks) were selected in close consultation with the farmers; this was important as these were considered ‘benchmark’ sites that can be used by the farmers to tell them about the performance of their farm (or a part of it). Where possible, an untreated part of each farm was also sampled for comparison.
Each site was then subjected to a thorough set of
tests including:
- Visual assessments to evaluate pasture and soil condition.For soil, various factors such as structure, colour, and earthworms were scored, while pasture received scores on composition, growth and colour.
- Samples of soil and pasture were collected along transects at each site and sent to laboratories for a comprehensive suite of chemical and biological analysis.
- To fully understand the impacts and advantages of
dicalcic at different soil depths and the relationship with above-ground performance, the soil was sampled comprehensively at three depths (0 – 10mm, 0 – 75mm, and 0 – 150mm). Preliminary results certainly tend to support different effects at various depths.
In total, 18 sites were sampled across the nine farms. Their locations were recorded using GPS so they can be revisited in future years to assess any change and resilience to adverse conditions, particularly in the East Coast areas experiencing the effects of drought. 2009 and Beyond
How do we future-proof New Zealand’s pastoral sector to
ensure it remains the most efficient producer in the world?
To make this a reality, both Hatuma and Avoca are committed to helping New Zealand farmers make better soil fertility decisions through the innovative research with ARGOS.
Building resilience within the farm gate, while maintaining
stress-free and profitable farming, is always going to be a high priority of the programme. Setting up farmers to generate, from a smart lower-input system, top-shelf, low-input produce for the growing global demand outside the gate is another.
The programme will evolve as the research continues to find the answers by working with more and more farmers already achieving highly sustainable production from increasingly resilient farming systems.
Keep a look out in the near future for preliminary results to be released. |
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