N Check is a new electronic tool for arable and horticulture farmers in the Selwyn Te Waihora catchment. It provides an alternative to OVERSEER® for estimating farm nitrogen losses. It is free, quick and easy to use.
NCheck will be available for an interim period of up to five years while the crop module in OVERSEER® is being updated.
In the meantime, it is important to keep your farm data from 2009-2013 as you will eventually require this to develop an OVERSEER® nitrogen baseline.
How does NCheck work?
NCheck was designed to enable farmers to access their own N-loss numbers. The tool uses your farm address to access the soil and climate information for your farm and then leads you through a short set of questions about your farm system and its management. It then uses this information to estimate a nitrogen loss for the farm. This number is the Nitrogen Loss Estimate for the farm. N-Check assumes that you are applying good management practices (GMPs).
In the background, the tool is accessing an extensive set of OVERSEER® results, generated for Environment Canterbury’s Matrix of Good Management (MGM) project via your set of answers. It is drawing on less farm information than a full OVERSEER® budget, so the N-Loss estimate it produces could be less accurate than the OVERSEER estimates.
At the end of the process an NCheck report is available. This can be printed off and filed with your consent, if one is required, and your farm environment plan.
Who can use NCheck?
NCheck can be used by all farmers in Selwyn Te Waihora to determine their nitrogen loss number and based on this, whether or not a consent is required.
- Arable and horticultural farmers with cropping rotations on more than 50% of the property or intensive vegetable rotations for more than 80% of the time.
- Low leaching/lifestyle farming activities where nitrogen losses do not exceed 15 KgN/ha/year.
Finding and using NCheck
Click here to access NCheck on Environment Canterbury's website: Once you have found the tool, follow the instructions to register yourself as a user.
Guidelines for using NCheck are available on the same page of the website.
Selwyn Te Waihora Land Management staff have scheduled a series of drop-in sessions where they will be able to demonstrate NCheck, and FAR is planning to run consent-development workshops in the autumn.
When will I need OVERSEER®?
NCheck will be available for up to five years while the cropping module of OVERSEER® is being updated. Consents issued based on NCheck Nutrient Loss Reports will expire in 2022 and those who have used NCheck for consents this year, will need to reapply at that stage with OVERSEER® data.
You may still choose to use OVERSEER® data for the current consenting process if:- You are part of an irrigation scheme, you may still need to use OVERSEER®. Check with your scheme.
- A significant large part of your farm business relies on intensive, winter dairy grazing you should prepare an OVERSEER® budget.
- You wish to explore different nitrogen mitigations or land use scenarios OVERSEER® will be the better option.
To date, NCheck has been only been approved for use in the Selwyn Te Waihora Zone, however, there is a strong potential to use it in other Canterbury catchments to help with the consenting process. Approval in these zones will depend on representation from the zone committee to Environment Canterbury. A stronger case can be made if farmers support their zone committees with an application. We urge you to do this.
Full information about the Environment Canterbury consenting process can be found at www.canterburywater.farm