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Soil quality demo draws interest

Soil quality demo draws interest
Members of a Mid Canterbury arable grower group (from left) Angus McKenzie and Will Mackenzie with Foundation for Arable Research chairman Steven Bierema.

The pros and cons of different crop establishment techniques were on display at a Mid Canterbury field day run by a group of arable farmers looking to improve their soil quality.
The Eiffelton-based group was one of the first to be set up as part of the Foundation for Arable Research’s (FAR) Growers Leading Change (GLC) initiative, which encourages arable farmers to form groups to develop, test, and introduce new ideas, technologies and ways of working.
Eiffelton farmer Will Mackenzie said farmers in the district had formed a casual group a few years ago. They were all of a similar age group, in their 30s, and farming mixed cropping and livestock systems. Since the GLC Arable Growth Group was formed last year other young growers, from Wakanui to Mayfield, had joined.
The group is investigating impacts of arable management techniques/systems on soil quality with the aim of improving both farm environmental outcomes and profitability.  As these are not scientific trials they are instead referred to as on-farm try-outs.
The field day visited a paddock farmed by Angus McKenzie where four different establishment techniques had been tried in one hectare plots in a crop of plantain for seed. The paddock had previously been in potatoes, followed by oats, wheat, and then plantain.
The different establishment techniques were no till using a Cross Slot direct drill, strip till using a Mzuri one-pass drill, minimum tillage using a Sumo Trio one-pass stubble cultivator, and conventional cultivation using a plough to turn the soil over.
Last season, when the paddock was in feed wheat, all treatments had yielded the same 10.5 tonne/ha yield, Angus McKenzie said. The cost of production was lower using no-till, while ploughing and minimum tillage had higher diesel and machinery costs.
It was possible to tell the difference between the options when walking across the paddock, which also reflected the soil’s water-holding capacity. It was a matter of matching the right method to the crop and paddock, he said.
Group facilitator Cath Dimmock said some of the other 15 group members were also trying out different techniques on their farms. In year one the focus was on try-outs using different establishment techniques, while in year two the group was planning to undertake activities to better understand soil quality.

  • By Pat Deavoll