ALL SERIES

Prior to 1990, fertiliser N was used only strategically on NZ dairy farms, once or twice a year. MAF’s Farm Advisors cautioned against wider use because of adverse effects on clover growth. Dairy farming was mainly on the deep, free-draining volcanic soils of the Waikato and Taranaki, which had reliable summer rainfall.   Developments in … Read more

Within the new EU Green Deal, its ‘Farm-to-Fork’ policy sets specific objectives for agriculture-food system sustainability. These include reducing nutrient losses by 50% and reducing fertiliser use by 20% by 2030. These objectives are interlinked; the development of more efficient fertilisers automatically reduces fertiliser requirements and reduces nutrient losses.   In NZ by comparison, no … Read more

The topdressing aircraft fleet has declined from about 75 in 1990 to only 30 now. Reasons include the removal of fertiliser subsidies (1980s), the use of more concentrated P ferts, the replacement of the Fletcher with the 2-tonne payload Cresco, the reduced use of lime, and the increased use of helicopters.   But there will … Read more

Alone in the world, NZ has a duopoly of SSP (single superphosphate) manufacturers. It is argued that SSP contains sulphur(S) as well as P. So what? You can add very efficient elemental S granules (S90) to ANY P fert, IN THE EXACT AMOUNT NEEDED.   Let’s look at Ballance’s SSP plant at Awarua, Bluff. It … Read more

This issue is not going to go away. Environmentalists, farmer organisations like Federated Farmers, Fertmark and the fertiliser cooperatives are all ‘muddying the waters’ by using simplistic and self-serving arguments.   We can keep going round and round the merry-go-round of passing the buck, or the government can put some effort into incentivising farmers to … Read more

Why has Quin Environmentals offered its Algerian RPR – internationally recognised as one of the best – in 2 forms since 2018? Simply because the ‘standard’ RPR contains about 7% dolomite. This gives it an artificially low result in the 1970s-vintage Fertmark 30-min citsol test, because the dolomite preferentially consumes the citric acid. It does … Read more

The Farmers Weekly otherwise fair article on the High Court judgment was unfortunately ruined by the inclusion of Anders Crofoot’s ill-informed and irrelevant comments. Why didn’t the chairperson of the Fertiliser Quality Council (FQC) bother to read up on what the case was actually about; perhaps even make contact with me to see if the … Read more

Watched an interesting Newshub TV3 story about Ballance the other night. Too light on hard scientific questions, but well put together. Several statements by Ballance CEO Mark Wynne must be challenged:   (1) Boucraa is an ‘ideal’ phosphate for NZ. Wrong; it is not effective for direct application and has to be attacked with concentrated … Read more

Ballance, with 45%+ of the NZ fertiliser market, sought an immediate injunction in the High Court in Sep 2018 to stop Quin Environmentals (QE) calling its Algerian RPR – an internationally acclaimed RPR to boot – an RPR. It failed. QE was just a start-up company simply trying to promote RPR as an environmentally-protective alternative … Read more