National Agricultural Fieldays Scholarship Winners Announced

National Agricultural Fieldays Scholarship Winners Announced

Two University of Waikato science and engineering students have been awarded the 2013 National Agricultural Fieldays Scholarships.

The NZ National Fieldays Society funds the university’s New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays Sir Don Llewellyn Scholarship worth $22,000. Each student has received a half share of the scholarship.

Masters student Nadia Laubscher has been awarded the scholarship to help her study why “flipped” soils are better for pasture production than undisturbed soils.

She is supported by Dairy NZ and working under the supervision of the university’s Dr Megan Balks and Professor David Lowe, analysing the moisture retention of flipped soils and neighbouring control areas in the Galatea basin – an area in the southeast Bay of Plenty notorious for succumbing to drought.

“The soil in the Galatea basin is really drought prone in summer,” says Nadia. “Farmers there rely on the use of irrigation, bringing in feed or reducing stocking rates – all things not ideal for farmers.”

Gaining an understanding of how soil flipping enhances the soil characteristics may provide farmers with an innovative way to improve efficiency of moisture use for pasture production during the dry periods. Soil flipping involves mechanically digging into the top 1-2m of soil and tipping it end over end, mixing the different layers of soil. The underlying pumice layers are broken up in the process and buried soil that contains more clay and nutrients are brought to the surface - effectively making a modified soil.

Nadia splits the scholarship with PhD student Talia Hicks, who is working with Dr Johan Verbeek on decolouring bloodmeal bioplastic and the complications this has on the manufacturing process.

“I’m looking at what happens when you bleach the bloodmeal feedstock used to produce bioplastic. When you bleach something you end up with structural changes to the product, I’m looking at what changes do happen, and how this changed the properties of the bioplastic.”

The University of Waikato has a long-standing association with Fieldays – its founding Vice-Chancellor Sir Don Llewellyn was a strong supporter of the event when it began in the 1960s, and the university has for many years been a strategic partner of the National Agricultural Fieldays.

Jon Calder, Chief Executive Officer at NZ National Fieldays Society, says “The New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays Sir Don Llewellyn Scholarship is an important part of our programme to support the advancement of agriculture in New Zealand. We are incredibly supportive of the research and technology that the University of Waikato drives into improving agriculture.”

University of Waikato Vice-Chancellor Professor Roy Crawford says the Fieldays scholarship was introduced to fund highly relevant research that will make real-world differences to the agricultural industry.

“We established the scholarship last year in partnership with the NZ National Fieldays Society to help fund students completing research that we believe will change how people farm.

“The university’s presence at the Fieldays event is designed to showcase a lot of the research and technology we develop that is going to have a big impact on the agricultural sector.”

Fieldays takes place 12-15 June this year at Mystery Creek near Hamilton.

ENDS

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