| 17 Technology and innovation are key Karen Phelps Technology and innovation is helping the kumara industry to reduce dependence on labour, improve environmental impacts and remain viable into the future, says Dunsmore Gardens owner Doug Nilsson “Farm owners are very active about environmental issues on farm,” he says. “It’s in our best interest to look after our land as everyone wants a farm to sell one day to be able to retire.” Aside from weather, labour is the biggest factor in the success of a kumara harvest, he says, due to the labour intensive nature of the crop. On his farm kumara is laid out by hand, after being hand selected for seed, in eight kilometres of ground beds from the end of July to September. The plants are then all harvested and cut off by hand, taken into shed and prepared for planting and planted by hand. As the crop grows chemicals to knock back the weeds can also kill the kumara so some hand weeding is always required as well. At harvest time, if conditions are right, machinery can be used but labour is needed to work on the harvesters and to hand sort on the belt etc. “Labour really dictates how much of the crop we will get planted in the planting window, quality and yields,” says Doug. “The workforce can be ckle so we never know who will turn up on any given day, which further complicates things. And every part of the process can potentially mean damage to the crop depending on the worker so we are really reliant on good workers.” RURAL PEOPLE » Dunsmore Gardens Dunsmore Gardens is grateful to a small group of around 13 workers through the RSE scheme from Vanuatu that form the nucleus of its team of up to 70 workers at harvesting time and around 40 workers at planting. Doug says he is always trying different ways of doing things to reduce reliance on labour and improve productivity and ef ciency. For example at the moment the industry is trialling a kumara planting machine and on his own farm he has built a harvester to pull plants out of the beds. He hopes this will give consistency and not work ground up as much, lessening environmental impact and helping with drainage. He also uses GPS self-steering tractors, which give greater accuracy and up to a 40% saving in diesel as well as saving labour. Doug showed interest in growing at a young age. Growing up on a local sheep and beef farm he started growing strawberries while at high school, selling them locally. Through the eighties sheep and beef farming was tough so his parents divested into cropping, starting with squash and progressing to kumara. In 2002 Doug took over the business, eventually buying the land and adding additional blocks to give 200ha. The kumara growing area is around 70ha and he grows all the main commercial varieties are grown: Owairaka Red, Beauregard, Toka Toka and Purple Dawn. He is trialling the Japanese variety Murasaki, which has reddish-purple skin but unlike the typical orange sweet potatoes it has white esh. He says it has a rmer, drier texture than other sweet potatoes and an earthy, chestnut-like sweetness. In the off season Dough put in grass and fatten 2000-2500 lambs over the winter then sprays out the paddocks and puts kumara back in. On some paddocks he grows a crop of silage for a year – this year that was 20ha of maize. He also takes the opportunity in the non-growing season to help control aggressive weeds such as alligator weed. Product is supplied to Kaipara Kumara, which Dunsmore Gardens is a shareholder of. Doug says the New Zealand market for kumara is unique because of the conditions we are growing in giving it a real point of difference that Kiwis enjoy. 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