Putting New Science into Practice

With ever-increasing pressures to boost production and productivity, farmers are hungry for the latest information emerging from scientists’ laboratories, models and trials.

New technologies are constantly evolving from research programmes or being made available from overseas.

The reality is that many farms still don’t implement current best practice, thereby losing out on maximum efficiencies, both from a business and an environmental protection aspect.

It’s important for economic and environmental reasons that the agricultural industry is helped to clear away barriers to change and to take up new technologies and practices.

That’s why Environment Waikato puts such a lot of effort into environmental education. It’s all about finding ways to support farmers with their struggle to access useful and comprehensive information, and to help them implement this in their day-to-day farming decisions. Farmers often mention that a failure to address such practicalities can be a real barrier to them when they’re looking to take up new ideas.

A project to use dairy effluent for growing maize is an example of helping farmers to address these practicalities: Scientists had developed fantastic tools like the Amaize-N calculator to improve current techniques of nitrogen application to maize. But Environment Waikato has built on that by initiating a project to use dairy effluent as a fertiliser to produce maize, with the aim of helping farmers both better manage their effluent and produce maize more cheaply and efficiently.

As we work through the practical issues involved during a three-year trial on several Waikato farms, we’ll continue to work hand-in-glove with the scientists. The Foundation for Arable Research (FAR), Genetic Technologies and DairyNZ, with substantial funding from MAF’s Sustainable Farming Fund, are involved with us on the project.

Results from the first year trial, conducted by Mike Parker from FAR, have shown all crops produced very good yields of between 23 and 26 to dry matter per ha. This was a great result considering the drought in the Waikato. Even more exciting was that the crops fed only on dairy effluent grew the same yields as those crops which received the standard full fertiliser programme of starter fertiliser plus side-dressing.

This demonstrates that there is clear opportunity to reduce fertiliser spending without compromising yield. From an environmental perspective, it means farmers can increase nutrient efficiency by using nutrients which are already in their farm system for maize growing.

Effluent could potentially become a tradable and valuable item, with a price tag attached, depending on nutrient concentration.

Growers who continuously crop their land for maize would benefit from the organic matter which comes with the effluent, improving soil fertility and soil physical properties.

High input dairy farms may not have the land available to utilise all the nutrients released by their high performing animals – transferring nutrients to other farms might be crucial for the long-term success of such operations. This could develop into a neat solution of nutrient recycling between farms, creating strategic partnerships.

I believe more farmers will be in a position to get involved with using effluent for maize, thereby reaping economic and environmental benefits.

Gabriele Kaufler, Sustainable Agricultural Coordinator for Environment Waikato