| 69 Farmer starts up the rotary milking system for the first milking session of the day. RURAL SERVICES » Agritech NZ www.lincolnagritech.co.nz Lincoln Agritech does science impact! with Water, water everywhere – and always in the news. Whether it’s nitrates in freshwater, looding, or decreasing river low and drought, how we manage and respond to water has become one of THE issues of our times. Lincoln Agritech is a business that has focused on water issues, and how they impact farming, industry, and society, for many decades. The water focus began with IRRICADTM, irrigation design software launched in 1988. It’s now the world’s leading irrigation design software, sold in more than 90 countries. Keeping on the irrigation theme, Lincoln Agritech’s science is also being used to save billions of litres of water on corn, soybean, and potato farms in the American mid-west. Its radar-based moisture sensor has been incorporated into Autonomous Pivot’s smart sensor technology, which is installed on 400 centre-pivot irrigators in the United States. Able to take more than 300 soil moisture readings per rotation, at di erent points throughout the ield, it is providing the precise data farmers need to dramatically cut their water use. Autonomous Pivot CEO Yurial Aviel said a ield-by- ield study showed a 20% saving of water, and a many- ield study showed a 15% reduction in water use, all without loss of yield. “If you calculate that for a ield of corn, it’s about 300 swimming pools, or 10million gallons,” he said. “If you multiply 10million gallons of water by 400, you get billions of gallons of water.” Science with real-world impact Lincoln Agritech is investigating adapting this technology for use on New Zealand farms. Lincoln Agritech’s innovation is also having real-world impact in water nitrate testing. It developed the novel HydroMetrics optical nitrate sensor in response to the need for a robust, simple, low-cost nitrate sensor that gives continuous real-time data on a long-term unattended basis. This gives our farmers essential and timely licence-to-operate information, allowing them to make informed decisions about grazing, fertiliser application, and even riparian planting. HydroMetrics has already sold 100 sensors and is about to be spun out from Lincoln Agritech as a new company. Understanding how braided rivers work, and how river management strategies a ect aquifer recharge is another area of water management where Lincoln Agritech’s scientists are making a di erence. Their work formed the basis of a presentation to Marlborough District Council Environment Committee in 2022 suggesting that historic work to narrow the Wairau River and contain it within stop banks is one of the main reasons why the Wairau aquifer’s water levels are declining. The aquifer provides drinking, irrigation and stock water. Water – its availability and purity – is vital to all forms of life. Few businesses are as close to it, and the impacts of water problems, as farming. Lincoln Agritech is a business with a strong focus on providing the science that allows us to manage it properly. the same trial can be done in springtime here in September and there in April,” explains Brendan. Ultimately the group is united by the need to address the gap between political and regulatory systems and what’s happening on the land: they want to find the tools that will enable the farmers to more readily meet new legislative requirements. “We want to look at what it might mean to have some regulatory equivalents. For example can we use some of the technologies that are recognised in Ireland as reducing their emissions here in New Zealand. We want to make sure that New Zealand has access to such things but also importantly that New Zealand is leading the way,” says Brendan. He’s positive about the agricultural industry in New Zealand and believes that the regulatory measures coming in here are preferable to what’s being put in place in the EU or even the UK, even though many don’t like them. “I think even the intent to consult on He Waka Eke Noa (government policy), and to walk down that path of looking at appropriate ways to put farm level interventions in place, while it might not be a comfortable conversation, that conversation between farmer representatives, which gives industry a voice on how their policy would be shaped, happens less in other markets,” says Brendan. Add to that his belief that New Zealand farmers are some of the best in the world when it comes to driving technology adoption and being open to change, and Brendan believes the opportunity to develop solutions here first then take them to the rest of the world is one that investors will use to the advantage of farmers everywhere sooner rather than later.
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