05-07-10: Scientists and farmers get together at Te Pahu Farm Field day.
The weather may have been variable but it did not dampen the spirits of the 70 attendees at the Te Pahu Farm field day held on Tuesday 29th June.
The event facilitated by NZ Landcare Trust and DairyNZ provided an opportunity for farmers to discuss water quality issues with NIWA scientists and staff from Environment Waikato.
A series of presentations set the scene for later discussion. Lucy McKergow from NIWA spoke about on-farm hydrology and ways of mitigating soil and nutrient loss to water.
Bob Wilcock (NIWA) highlighted a collaborative project between NIWA and DairyNZ entitled 'Best Practice Catchments for Sustainable Dairying', highlighting positive gains that have been made since the project started in 2001.
Bala Tikkisetty, the Sustainable Agriculture Coordinator from Environment Waikato gave an overview of the current status of the soil and water quality in the Waikato Region including some sobering statistics:
" The waste generated by 3,000 dairy herds in the Waikato river catchment is estimated to be equal to the waste from about 5 million people or nearly 50 cities the size of Hamilton"
Anne Lightfoot demonstrated water quality monitoring, while Gerry Kessels and Britta Deichmann did some electric fishing in the Kaniwhaniwha Stream. Despite the recent heavy rain the fishing produced a series of interesting results including a few nationally threatened species; a lamprey, longfin eels, Crans Bully and freshwater crayfish.
Useful links to the DOC site:
- more info about the lamprey>
- more info about the longfin eel>
- more info about Crans Bully>
- more info about freshwater crayfish>
