Vegetable Research & Innovation

This poster is designed for growers when using a product off label and on a crop or pest that is not listed on the label.

This covered crop growers’ biosecurity manual guides vegetable growers on good biosecurity practices. This manual allows growers to assess the biosecurity systems they have in place, and directs growers to information sources and further steps to consider.

This vegetable growers biosecurity manual guides vegetable growers on good on-farm biosecurity practices.
The manual allows growers to assess what biosecurity systems they have in place and directs growers to information sources and further steps to consider.

Joining the Dots is a structured approach to progressing from problem recognition, to implemented and audited mitigations, and benchmark sustainability reporting.

The original intent of the project was to create Farm Environment Plans (FEPs) that could be audited under the New Zealand Good Agricultural Practice (NZGAP) Environmental Management System (EMS) add-on, to provide assurance to regional councils that the outdoor fresh vegetable industry is undertaking continuous improvement with the goal of increasing sustainability.

As part of the work to date, Agrilink NZ and NZGAP, commissioned by the Vegetable Research and Innovation Board (VR&I), have stepped a grower through the process using the problem of soil erosion on cultivated vegetable paddocks. The case study grower developed an Erosion & Sediment Control Plan (a component of an FEP), which has a staged implementation, and has been audited through NZGAP.

The research results are from the Sustainable Farming Fund (SFF) project ‘Don’t Muddy The Water’ underpins the Erosion & Sediment Control Guidelines for Vegetable Production.

The project also explored the potential for collection, aggregation, analysis, and display of national and regional scale metrics via NZGAP EMS. Individualised benchmarking reports could be generated for growers to inform future decision making and priority management areas, as well as aggregated environmental metrics to report on the industry’s sustainability progress over time. This report demonstrates individualised reporting using soil erosion and mitigation data, as well as regional and national level reporting.

The next phase needs to be rolling out, at scale, FEPs, as the vehicle for growers to adopt and document further good and best management practices. Alongside this is further development of the data collection, aggregation, and dashboard system. As the number of completed FEPs builds, the baseline data will become more robust and form a factual basis for prioritising areas for improvement, and setting targets, timelines, and reviews. This then feeds back into problem recognition, new research, and targeted grower engagement and extension activities.

Acephate and methamidophos (organophosphates) are insecticides that are not allowed to be used off-label on vegetable crops. This is a legal requirement and these restrictions have been in force from 2015. This poster is provided as a guide to vegetable growers to ensure legal use of these agrichemicals.

This code of practice for vehicle washdown has been developed by Agrilink for the Vegetable Research & Innovation Board.

This COP is designed to assist you in determining which vehicle cleaning measures are best suited for your operation.

This background document supports the Minimising Soil Movement by Vehicles Off Farm Code of Practice. It covers the
existing literature on a range of mitigation measures designed to minimise soil transport between farms or onto the road.

While an integrated pest management (IPM) approach to pest and disease management is generally crop-specific, the
components and principles of an IPM programme are more generic.

The aim of this guideline is to provide vegetable growers, crop scouts, crop consultants and crop managers with an understanding of the key components and strategies for growing vegetable crops using IPM.

Original publication: Walker M, Davidson M, Wright P. March 2019. Generic IPM Guideline for Vegetable Crops. A Plant &
Food Research report prepared for: Vegetable Research & Innovation Board, Horticulture New Zealand Inc. Milestone
No. 80265. Contract No. 36516. Job code: P/336075/01. SPTS No. 17561.

This field trial evaluates downy mildew control in onions with registered fungicides. This field trial is an extension from the laboratory trials carried out by Plant & Food Research testing for resistance of fungicides to downy mildew (Wright and Beresford, 2019).  In this Pukekohe-based field trial a variety of fungicide treatments were applied and their ability to control downy mildew incidence was assessed. Applications of Zampro, Acrobat, Zorvec Enicade + Dithane and Reason + Dithane all provided significant and consistent downy mildew control. Overall, There was no significant difference in downy mildew control between the fungicide treatments. These results have been generated from a single field trial and as such should be interpreted with this in mind.

Authors: Andrew Barber, Henry Stenning and Murray Hicks

Don’t Muddy the Water, was a 4 year long Sustainable Farming Fund (SFF) project focussed on Erosion & Sediment (E&S) control on cultivated horticultural land. The full analysis and results are contained within their own final reports available from HortNZ.

Agrilink and NIWA conducted a trial to determine the efficiency of Sediment Retention Ponds (SRP) on cultivated horticultural land. Weirs and autosamplers measured flow rates and collected suspended sediment samples from three different sized SRPs on a cultivated vegetable production site on Pukekohe Hill in Auckland.