Spray diaries provide data essential to industry’s future: please provide yours now

Vegetables NZ is undertaking work to better understand the use of agrichemicals in the growing of vegetables. We are asking growers if they would provide – no later than by 29 November 2024 – spray diaries for asparagus, broccoli, lettuce, kumara, watermelon, pumpkin, spinach, carrot, sweet corn, garlic, glasshouse capsicum and glasshouse cucumber crops for the June 2023 - May 2024 season.

This information is key to help direct future research projects, provide information to show the value of crop protection products, and show the change in crop protection products over time.

Ensuring confidentiality around this grower information is critical. To address this issue, Vegetables NZ is working with an independent third party, AgriLink, to consolidate the spray diary information.

A panel of growers (made up of Crop Advisory Group members) and Vegetables NZ staff will then approve the information to be released. The groups who will be interested in this information include A Lighter Touch, Plant & Food Research, and Vegetables NZ itself.

No information will be provided without the panel’s approval, and information will be consolidated for the whole country. For example, crop protection for lettuce across New Zealand. Individual grower information or regional differences will not be supplied.

Timeframe

Please email your diaries to vegediaries@agrilink.co.nz by 29 November 2024, if not sooner.

• Ensure diaries show crop type planting date, harvest date, date of application, product(s) applied, rates used, and the total area applied.
• While CSV, PDF or excel formats are preferred, any diary format will be accepted.

If you have any questions, or would like access to a spray diary dashboard template, please contact Vegetables NZ research, development and extension manager, Daniel Sutton on 027 473 2381 or email: daniel.sutton@freshvegetables.co.nz.