74 | RURAL SERVICES »Luisetti Seeds • from page 72 also building relationships with farmers, getting involved with the family and they became very good friends because you saw them on such a regular basis. That’s why I really enjoyed the role. Now the roads are tar sealed and there are a lot more people and companies calling on farmers. But it’s still all about building the relationship. You can call up a farmer’s drive and not even talk about the farm sometimes. I’m now dealing with the third generation of farmers who now have their own little kids coming on. And very often the wives always have a scone on the table for you, which is very nice.” Of the forty years Kerry has been calling on arable and pastoral farmers, advising on seeds, fungicides, herbicides pesticides and fertilisers, over half that time has been with family owned and operated Canterbury company, Luisetti Seeds. Kerry’s client base stretches from Methven and Sheffield, down to Lincoln, Leeston, Southbridge and Rakaia. Mainly calling on cropping farmers, Kerry also has a large number of pastoral farmers that he regularly calls on. “I guess the value I bring to farmers is the vast experience I have had walking across tens of thousands of paddocks over the years and seeing all the different types of things that can go wrong with crops, and diseases that can appear. What you see on one farm can be completely different on the farm next door. So it’s a case of walking paddocks from one end to the other. You can throw every chemical and fertiliser at crop paddocks but at the end of the day it has to be a cost effective solution for the farmer that will maximise their yield and profits.” A solid understanding of agricultural chemicals is a key requirement for an agronomist, enabling the control of insects, weeds or fungal problems that a farmer might have. Kerry says regular and frequent skills and knowledge training is provided by the chemical companies keeping the agronomists abreast with the latest advances. “I’m also well known for my encyclopedic knowledge about agricultural chemicals because it is something I have really enjoyed over the years. There is also a lot of technical information available on-line. Much has changed over the years Kerry has been looking after the needs of his clients including the introduction of Roundup when it first came to New Zealand in ’82. “The product was very expensive but it revolutionised farming because instead of ploughing a paddock, grubbing it three times, rolling it and drilling it with five or six tractor passes, the paddock can be sprayed with roundup and drilled, saving a lot in tractor emissions.” Kerry also observes that farms are getting bigger with bigger gear, and the ‘price of land has gone ‘It’s still all about building relationships” through the roof’. “The farmer has to get a return from it, so they just can’t have any failures. They are very reliant on being able to grow good crops. Irrigation has now become commonplace and there have been a lot of innovations with plant breeding of different varieties that increase the yield. Luisetti Seeds in conjunction with Plant and Food Research have been in a programme breeding wheat varieties resistant to diseases and bugs. Those seeds have changed the farming landscape with yields of six tonnes of wheat per hectare twenty years ago to fourteen tonnes.” Traceability has also become increasingly important for farmers and Kerry makes use of the Agworld App on his Ipad to records what sprays have been utilised. “The farms we visit are mapped and every recommendation I make on a paddock is recorded in the system. Day to day I go out with a farmer, we stop at a paddock, look it over and decide what we are going to spray it with. I can then email that to him and also to a spray contractor with the map attached so the right paddock is sprayed. We used to write all that down on a carbon copy book. Innovations like Agworld have made my job so much easier. I can click on the Ipad and see what we sprayed six months ago or even up to eight years ago. It has transformed my whole job. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread.” Disease and bug resistant wheat seed varieties have “changed the farming landscape, with yields of six tonnes of wheat per hectare twenty years ago to fourteen tonnes,” says Luisetti Seeds’ Agronomist Kerry Thomas (below). “I guess the value I bring to farmers is the vast experience I have had walking across tens of thousands of paddocks over the years and seeing all the different types of things that can go wrong with crops, and diseases that can appear.” Talk to Luisetti Seeds about IPM in forage brassica’s and how Exirel® insecticide can fit into your spray program this summer/autumn. Approved for helicopter application. www.fmccrop.nz An Agricultural Sciences Company
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