Carbon Positive Project Update - Cover Crops | Future Farming | Hawke's Bay

Carbon Positive Project Update - Cover Crops

Winter cover crops were planted in late April after sweetcorn was harvested

Added 12 months ago

Carbon Positive Project Update - Cover Crops

Winter cover crops were planted in late April after sweetcorn was harvested. The Carbon Positive project has Moata annual ryegrass planted in the Conventional and Hybrid treatments and a mix of oats, vetch and blue lupins planted in our Regenerative treatment. Lambs will be arriving at the end of the month to graze the Conventional treatment.

The team at LandWISE have been regularly monitoring canopy cover using the Canopeo app. The app captures an image of an area of crop, green elements appear as white pixels and all other elements appear as black pixels, and an estimate of canopy cover is given as a percentage. The example given is from the Regenerative treatment which has oats, vetch and lupins. Canopeo estimates canopy cover is approximately 72%.

The Project is experimenting with measuring Relative Slug Activity in our plots, to see if there might be treatment differences in slug population. Using methodology from Oregon State University flowerpot saucers have been placed upside down in the plots and will be left for 1-3 days. Slugs found under the saucers will then be counted and weighed.