Projects
Irrigation Management
AgriLINK NZ provides a weekly soil moisture monitoring service primarily to kiwifruit and avocado orchards in the Franklin district but is capable servicing any region of greater Auckland.
The service uses the Sentek Diviner technology and includes weekly soil moisture, irrigation and rainfall readings. Recommendations are provided on the optimum irrigation requirements for the following week. The graph below shows what the client receives either faxed or available through a website.
A typical investment in this service is $30/week + GST, plus a one off site establishment cost of $490 + GST which includes installing three 1m tubes, a water meter and rain gauge.
Soil moisture readings are taken every 10cm down to 1m.
Contact us for more information or to arrange a site visit.
Weekly readings and irrigation recommendations. click image to enlarge (65KB)
Continuous Soil Moisture Monitoring
AgriLINK NZ can provide growers and farmers with continuous soil moisture monitoring using the EnviroSCAN technology.
The EnviroSCAN system consists of multiple sensors at multiple sites. These sensors continuously monitor soil moisture with data stored in a datalogger. This provides the user with accurate and continuous soil moisture readings. The readings allow the user to obtain a true picture of the soil moisture status over time, observe the impact of irrigation and rainfall events and adjust soil moisture management accordingly.
The separate layer graph below clearly shows where the roots are active. For this onion crop, by the time the roots were taking water out from the 50cm layer, the crop was in stress. This emphasised the need to only irrigate the top 50cm. Irrigations were reduced from 50-60mm per pass down to 30-35mm.
Continuous readings of soil moisture in the top 50cm of an onion crop
Separate layer graph clearly showing the root activity at different depths
Erosion Management
AgriLINK NZ provides advice to outdoor vegetable growers on erosion management. As part of the Franklin Sustainability Project an erosion guideline was developed.
Emphasis is placed on minimising the movement of soil within the paddock by using strategies like interception drains at the top of the paddock, minimum tillage, planting cover crops and wheel track ripping. However, some soil movement is inevitable and so measures must be put in place to catch the soil before it disappears off the property and contaminates the receiving environment. These measures include the use of silt traps and bunds with snorkels for slowly draining the water and properly constructed spillways for when the snorkels can not cope. Some examples are shown below.
No erosion control measures.The access way is at the lowest point in the paddock.
Soil loss from the paddock above (just out of shot) where there are no erosion control measures.
The use of silt traps and bunds is making a significant difference to both retaining the growers soil asset (there is at least $500 worth of nutrients alone in the lost soil above and many times that in lost organic matter and reduced production) and minimising environmental damage.
Use of bunds at the bottom of paddocks.
Use of silt traps to capture the soil laden stormwater before it is discharged off the paddock.
Snorkels are used to slowly drain the silt traps.
Stormwater Management
Pukekohe Hill Rural Stormwater Upgrade 1997 - 1999
A preliminary study of the drainage on Pukekohe Hill conducted in February 1997 identified a number of key deficiencies. A major contributing factor to the failure of the drainage system during the May 1996 storm was a poorly co-ordinated drainage network.
Following the preliminary study a detailed analysis of the rural drainage network has been carried out. The findings from this analysis were reported back to the Franklin District Council. A consultative process between the land owners and council was established allowing for a co-operative implementation phase.
The total Pukekohe Hill study area was 275ha.
Bombay Rural Stormwater Study
A similar project is now being conducted in Bombay. Again, the intention is to establish a co-ordinated stormwater system between private property owners and Council. Unlike Pukekohe that had a town of 13,000 at the base, Bombay is far less populated however problems have been identified and these will only increase as more people move to the Franklin area.
The area is a mix of outdoor vegetable, pastoral, life style blocks and residential sections.The total study area is 665ha. Significant advancements have been made since the Pukekohe Hill project in 1997 on erosion management for outdoor vegetables and these lessons will be applied to this project.
The total Bombay study area is 665ha.