Sustainable Crop Production

AFI management and staff have a wealth of experience in sustainable crop management prectices and employ the latest technologies to monitor parameters such as soil moisture, soil salinity, plant and soil nutrition and pest populations to make accurate management decisions to ensure the most efficient use of resourses and minimal environmental impact.

: Drip irrigation can reduce water losses, improve yields and quality

AFI use remote soil moisture monitoring, with sensors in the field at a range of depths reading the soil moisture level every 10 minutes and transmitting the data to a web site via the cell phone network. This allows AFI’s agronomists and the growers to continuously monitor the irrigation status their crops . The data allows for an accurate quantitative analysis of the water requirements of the crop, eliminating water waste and nutrient leaching, and allowing control of crop stress.

The latest remote sensing for soil moisture displays crop water use in real time to ensure accurate irrigation decisions.

Integrated Pest Managemenmt

Many references to hemp growing state that pests are not a problem – this is not always the case, and in fact, very low THC crops grown for seed in the sub tropics can suffer significant damage if a sound pest management strategy is not in place. Helicoverpa spp. (heliothis) can be a serious pest from the beginning of grain set, with the caterpillars feeding on the young grain. Green Vegetable is another potentially serious pest, usually building up in numbers by the grain fill stage. The adults can do significant damage to seed in the pre dough stages, and can inflict losses in excesses of 50% due to loss of seed viability and quality.

By planting a combination of specially selected trap crops to help increase natural biological controls, making strategic releases of beneficial insects at the right time, we are confident that we will be able to achieve economic control of pests without intervention with pesticides.

Green Vege Bugs in Hemp

Assassin bugs can be a significant factor in reducing damage from Green vege Bug

Assassin bugs can be a significant factor in Green Vege bug control.

For more on crop production – Aust-Sugar-Cane-Jul09