Key Points
- A long term cultivation trail has been established at FAR’s Waikato Arable Research Site. The cultivation treatments are conventional cultivation, strip tillage and direct drilling, each replicated three times.
- Maize plant population was slightly lower in the direct drill treatment, probably due to pest pressure. Slug bait was used on both the strip tillage and direct drill treatments. There was no effect of cultivation method on maize grain yield or moisture content.
- The total cost of full cultivation and strip tillage were similar ($330/ha). Direct drilling had only the expense of the slug bait ($90/ha).
- Provided good management practices are employed including sufficient fallow time, high accuracy GPS, pest control, strip or no tillage can successfully be used to establish a maize crop on the light free-draining Horotiu soil.