Located near Flemington in Central Hawkes Bay and owned by Pete Swinburn and Suzanne Hoyt & Bruce Isles and Danelle Dinsdale, Watergreen-Tourere is a 1250 ha property located in the Flemington district in Central Hawkes Bay and was an Innovation Farm for 2016-2020.
Oversowing of high-performance species (arrowleaf clover/plantain) onto steep dryland hill country is being benchmarked against resident species on areas of similar contour. Oversowing has resulted in a significant increase in quantity and quality of dry matter but increased the management issues. Measurements are being continued under the Hill Country Futures programme. Pasture production is also being monitored at a range of microsites and is linked with the Landcare work examining the differences in microclimate within a farm.
You can read in more detail about the project here or about their story here.
Soil Monitoring
Monitoring sensor networks for soil temperature and soil moisture have also been established on this farm. The temperature and soil moisture sensors are placed at a depth of 30 cm. These sensor networks record data in onboard storage and report back to cloud storage via a gateway site to the cell phone data network. The data from these sensor networks are being used to test capability to map the spatial pattern of both temperature and moisture across complex hill country landscapes and relate this to productivity models for legumes.