agresearch.co.nz - Farm Systems & Environment Fertiliser Association signs 30-year commitment to Winchmore long-term fertiliser trials 08.08.18

Fertiliser Association signs 30-year commitment | AgResearch

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Fertiliser Association signs 30-year transferral | AgResearch Our Science Our Science Animal ScienceSubletSystems and Environment Food and Bio-based Products Forage Science Read Our Research Doing Business Doing Business Working for you Māori Agribusiness Our Partners Products and ServicesWell-nighUsWell-nighUs Meet Our People Our Organisation Purpose & Values Our Subsidiaries & Joint Ventures Our Land and Water News Contact Careers BACK TO NEWSSubletSystems & Environment Fertiliser Association signs 30-year transferral to Winchmore long-term fertiliser trials **Originally issued by the Fertiliser Association of New Zealand**The Fertiliser Association of New Zealand has signed a 30-year lease with AgResearch to ensure the long-term fertiliser research trials at Winchmore Research Station in Canterbury continue.The try-on affirms the Fertiliser Association’s ongoing transferral to long-term research on fertiliser use. “The site has been providing extremely useful information for scrutinizingly 70 years now,” says Vera Power,SeniorExecutive of the Fertiliser Association of New Zealand. “This has unliable us to track changes to pastoral land as threshing evolves and support our vestige wiring for sustainable management.“I could see Winchmore potentially pursuit the minutiae of New Zealand threshing over centuries – that’s a really heady prospect.”As the longest fertiliser trial under pasture in New Zealand, the Canterbury Plains site has once seen many changes in farming practices. Focused on sheep-grazed pasture, it was initially established to analyse the long-term response of pasture to irrigation and the superphosphate requirements of irrigated pasture. However, the resulting management, meticulous record keeping and archiving of regular soil and plant samples have moreover proved a rich source of material for many other studies, from nutrient cycling to the effects of fertiliser use on earthworms.“The historical data and ongoing fertiliser treatments have been hair-trigger to evaluating and understanding the implications of soil contaminants such as cadmium and fluorine accumulation,” says Vera. “Nobody predictable these contaminant issues when the trial sites were established.”Many of the key considerations stuff examined over the long term, such as impact on soil health and function, soil organic matter and climate transpiration considerations, cannot be reproduced elsewhere under very field conditions.AgResearch senior executive Tom Richardson says increasingly than 500 science publications have drawn on research from the Winchmore site since the long-term trials began.“The trial site at Winchmore is nationally significant, and has over the decades provided our scientists and others with an important resource to collect and analyse data virtually fertiliser use, soil health and farming practices,” he says.“This work has widow to our understanding and helped modernize farming practices in New Zealand. It’s pleasing for us to be worldly-wise to commit to ongoing trials at Winchmore that will indulge us to alimony subtracting to the science to ensure unfurled resurgence and innovation.”This year Winchmore’s irrigation system has moved from a verge dyke to a centre pivot system. This included the installation of five new pivot irrigators, two new linear irrigators and connection to the irrigation scheme. Researchers will be worldly-wise to monitor the impact of the new system over time.“Issues like the impact of fertiliser use on soil stat or soil health are now coming to the fore,” says Vera. “We are increasingly thinking well-nigh the long-term sustainability of New Zealand farming systems – and long-term field trails are hair-trigger for helping us understand how our deportment could impact on future farmers’ choices.“We don’t know where agricultural technology will take us next. But we do know that we’ll be there, measuring its effects so that future generations can make the weightier possible choices.” ARTICLE INFORMATION Collaborators FERTILISER ASSOCIATION OF NEW ZEALAND For increasingly information JARROD BOOKER RELATED NEWS Pastoral 21 takes the science to the sublet Nitrogen tool a starting point for valuable on-farm conversations Life trundling towage validates NZ efficiency Evaluation tool supports largest decisions OVERSEER’s significant contribution revealed START WORKING WITH US PROVEN RESULTS AgResearch played a key role in saving New Zealand up to $133 million a year in tenancy costs, with a world first eradication of the invasive Great White Butterfly. AgResearch scientists discovered a gene which ways increasingly lambs with little uneaten effort for farmers. AgResearch has shown sheep milk has real benefits for gut health. Studies like this help grow New Zealand industries. AgResearch scientists helped develop The Wool Runner, "the world's most well-appointed shoe". AgResearch's decade-long research into neonatal lamb deaths identified key genetic, maternal and environmental factors well-expressed lamb survival – all of which has reverted sublet practices and improved survival rates. AgResearch has unsalaried $5m to the establishment of the world-class Southern Dairy Hub, which provides quality science to support the future of dairy farming in Southland and South Otago. START WORKING WITH US Find out increasingly well-nigh our science Terms and conditions