Arable Farmers Shift to Dairy as Fuel and Fertiliser Costs Surge
Some arable farmers are getting out of arable and converting to dairy in the faced of soaring fuel and fertiliser prices on top of a very poor growing season.
For the past decade, European fertiliser spreader manufacturer Sulky has been offering Fertitest, a service designed to assist with the configuration and effective use of the brand’s spreaders.
Currently, the system offers more than 1500 listed fertilizers with the indicative settings for Sulky fertilizer spreaders.
A new “My Fertitest” platform makes the most of current interactive technologies to enable farmers to create and administer an on-line user account, to personalise and record his machine settings.
Using the platform, a farmer can build a unique database, that can be re-used as a reference point for future fertiliser applications. As part of the package, a notepad makes it possible to add notes for each fertilizer and a preferred setting, while also creating a record to provide traceability of the operations.
My Fertitest avoids re-entries and makes it possible to simplify the procedure of searching for settings by ensuring individual or multiple machines are recorded in their real configurations. In practice, a user connects to My Fertitest using his account, to find previous settings used with an individual fertilizer, without the need to choose fertilizer and machine configuration.
From January 2020, Fertitest has evolved to offer a new mobile application version, available and usable in offline mode, either by downloading e-application via www.fertitest.sulky-burel.com or mobile app stores.
Farmers will get an opportunity to hear about the latest developments in sheep genetics at the Sheep Breeder Forum this May.
Specialist horticulture and viticulture weather forecasters Metris says the incoming Cyclone Vaianu is likely to impact growers across the country.
A group of old Otago uni mates with a love of South Island back-country have gone the lengths of Waiau Toa Clarence from source to sea. Tim Fulton, who joined the group in the final fun to the river mouth, tells their story.
Operating with a completely different format from conventional tractors and combine harvesters, the NEXAT prime mover combines all steps of crop production in one modular carrier vehicle, from tillage, through seeding to harvesting.
Reports of severe weather forecast to move over the vast majority of New Zealand’s kiwifruit orchards this weekend will be very concerning for a significant number of growers.
Seeka chief executive Michael Franks says while it's still early days in terms of the kiwifruit harvest, things are looking pretty good.