A project to develop a best practice guide for the use of nitrogen in asparagus crops in New Zealand was hampered by one of the worst seasons on record. Still, research will continue.
The project had its origins in work that LandWISE manager Dan Bloomer and his colleagues did with vegetable growers in Levin, following concerns they were losing nitrogen to Lake Horowhenua. However, when Bloomer initiated the project, hoping to analyze how New Zealand asparagus growers use nitrogen and to come up with a good practice guide for the industry, he did not anticipate a season as difficult as he encountered.
“We were starting to do the research, but with the Covid-19 lockdown, growers not being able to get staff and no way of exporting asparagus out of New Zealand because there were no aeroplanes, the whole thing became very difficult,” he said.
Despite the problems, some insights were gained. Bloomer: “We brought together some good information, so we now know the range of different practices that growers are using, and we got some good trials established comparing different nitrogen fertilizer rates. As we look at the current season’s yields, we’ll get the results we need to get full value out of the work we started.”
“Different growers have completely and utterly different ways of dealing with nitrogen from, ‘I don’t put any nitrogen on my asparagus, I save it up and put it on my broccoli’, through to putting it on ‘because Dad did’, so there isn’t an industry standard practice,” Bloomer said.
Source: nzherald.co.nz
