August 5, 2026 • 23 mins
Michelle Watt talks with Kate Fransen, Senior Project Manager at DairyNZ, about plantain research and some of the exciting results emerging from farmlet trials. They discuss how incorporating plantain into pasture can have positive impacts on farm performance and productivity.
To find out more about plantain and the Plantain Potency Programme, visit www.dairynz.co.nz.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another Diary in ZiT update. For this episode,
I'm talking to Kate Franson, who is a senior project
manager at Deary in ZID about plantain research and some
of the exciting new results being discovered from farm lit
trials and how plantain can have a positive impact on
farm performance and production.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hi Kate, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I'm great? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
And we were talking off here a little bit about
where you originally came from, and I feel like we
need to share this fact with the listeners. Now, the
place in Australia that you came.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
From, what was it called Bonnie Dune?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And if our listeners recognize that they may have seen
the movie of the Castle, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
That's right, Yes, we're going to Bonnie Dune. Is the
saying in the Castle?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I love that fun factor.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Now in Hamilton, You've been in New Zealand for quite
some time now though.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yes, the last eleven years. I spent my first couple
of years in New Zealand in Lincoln and working in
farm systems. Dairy Farm Systems Consultant Certification was the first
program that I led there and then moving up to Hamilton.
I now live with my husband, Tony, who's from quite
(01:07):
a dairy farming background up here in the way Kadow
and joined his family up here. So we've been here
now for the last eight or nine years.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh, you're a key weed then, pretty much, I think
we can call it right now.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Okay, I got my citizenship, so you're.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Actually genuinely one. There we go.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We can go that way genuinely.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Okay. So let's get onto what today's program is about. Now.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
This plantain program is actually really interesting. The studies, some
of them, it's the first time they've been done on
a full farm sort of let working farm sort of
situation as well. Can you tell us a little bit
more about the study and flesh it out a little
bit for us?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sure? At the higher level the Plantain Potency in Practice
program now we're now sixth of seven years where a
collaborative research initiative led by darien Z and funded by MPI,
darien Z, PGG Rights and Seeds in Fonterra and we
have lots of partners so we're working in partnership with
Lincoln UNI, Massive UNI, Lincoln Agritech and Bioeconomy Science Institute,
(02:08):
so the new BSI and we've now been working in
the program for yeah, five years and we've just got
eighteen months to go. So the key focus is to
understand and quantify the effect of plantain on nitrogen leaching
and profitability at farm scale, while we're also working with
(02:28):
farmers across New Zealand. We've had up to thirty seven
partner farmers in the program in five regions to develop
management strategies for integrating plantain into their farm systems.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Excell And now that's quite a long time to run
a study for people out there who don't have a
science background. The big understandings of science research is the
links of time and the amount of tiss subjects that
you've got as what its way to research as you
know two ks. Now what these Lincoln studies. We don't
talk about the definite size of them, but they're quite
(03:03):
large and the timeframe is actually quite long, so the
results must be pretty diffinite.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, yeah, so we've had two farm sort of farm
scale research studies. One at massiw which we've talked about previously,
but it was sort of an on off grazing, so
animals come into an area, adjust to a diet and
then graze a plot where leaching is measured and then
away they go again around the rest of the farm,
(03:30):
whereas this Lincoln one. Oh, so that one was run
for five years and we've got some results from that.
This latest one that we're reporting on was at the
Lincoln University Research Theairy Farm, and here we had what
we call farmlets, so closed farm systems. We had two
treatments where leaching was measured and so one of them
(03:50):
was just had perennial rygrass and white clover, and the
other had three kilos of plantain sewn into that perennial
grass white clover mix. We also had a third treatment
where leeching wasn't measured, where a higher level of plantain
was zoned, so it's six kilos per hectare. So those
three treatments were run at Lincoln over a period of
(04:13):
four years. So we had full farm systems data collected
for the four year period as well as nitrogen leaching
measured with devices called suction cups, which was set up
in a grid with over seven hundred suction cups across
the site. What is a farmlets. So each of these
treatments were replicated three times. We had three mini farms
(04:36):
running as each treatment and each one had nine cows
and about three point two hectares and they're just running
around a full rotation, normal sort of farm system, just
on a smaller scale. So yeah, all of the ins
and outs, so production and profitability, the pasture growth, all
of those things measured over that four year period, as
(04:58):
well as the nuitchygen leaching measured using the suction cups
which were set six hundred miles down below the surface.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It sounds really fascinating. I'd love to come and see
that operation. I love seeing these science experiments and action
because it always took someone to come up with the
idea of how they're going to even collect the data
in the first place. And as we were talking about
off yea, you know this modeling, these results which we'll
talk about shortly, from these trials, they weren't just chucked
into AI their real world results, aren't they absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So when we talk about nitrogen leaching off the Lincoln
site and at Massy, we're not talking about a modeled result.
We're talking about the actual measured nitrogen leaching below the surface.
So with plantain, that's been and we'll talk a little
bit about that in a minute, but that's been a
real part of the challenge is to work out exactly
how plantain is working. And we've had lots of measurements
(05:50):
in urine and in the in cow urine, what's the
nitrogen level coming through, And we've had measurements usingly simmeters.
I'm just trying to understand what's going on in the soil.
But putting all that together under a full farm system
and measuring the actual night rate leaching that's coming through,
(06:10):
that's kind of what gives you the real indication I
think as to what's going on.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, so this isn't just lab something grown in a
lab and tested, or one cow or nine cow sitting
in a lab being tested. This is under real farm conditions,
isn't it so that you farmers know whether it's going
to affect their production or not from these results.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Absolutely? Yep, that's right.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So what's the results these talk a little bit more
about these What kind of stuff have you found so far?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Well, probably the highlight, Michelle, is that we've seen a
real reduction and a consistent reduction in nitrogen leeching over
the four years of the trial. So nightrate leeching there
was a thirty three percent reduction on average over the
four years. So we had an average of eighteen helos
per hectare that leached from the preenial rayhgrass clover treatment
(07:01):
compared to twelve kilos per hectare per year leaching out
of the treatment with plantain. And what's quite encouraging about
these results is that, you know, it's a challenge to
get high levels of plantain to persist in your pastures
for a period of time. Plantains not a long lived perennial.
(07:23):
It starts out when you sew into a mixed sword
at about thirty percent plantain, and then it's dropping down
to about fifteen percent after the second year and about
ten percent after the third year, and so trying to
maintain those really high levels across the whole farm is challenging. However,
(07:45):
what we've found at Lincoln is that even though we
did see that drop off in plantain percentage plateauing at
about twelve percent into the third and fourth years, we
still saw this consistent reduction in nitrogen leaching through the
whole through the period of the trial. Now, so that's
(08:06):
really encouraging. And then to put with that, we're also
seeing that farmers who are working close by to these
farms that this research site in the mid Canterbury region,
they're able to achieve about this ten to fifteen percent
plantain across their farms. They do that by putting plantain
(08:28):
seed into the seed mix of all their new pasture swords,
as well as broadcasting a couple of kilos of plantain
mixing it in with their fertilizer in spring each year.
So yeah, that's probably the highlight I think, Michelle.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, that low level still being found to be viable
and useful as differitely a huge thing because I'd imagine
that's a big question for farmers, isn't it the maintenance
of it and the ability for it to actually work
even at low levels.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yes, absolutely, you know that's been one of the biggest
questions is that, you know, is plantain still having an
effect even if it's only making up about ten percent
of the pasture swood? And I think I think that
because you know, that's the level that farmers seem to
be able to achieve relatively easily and at a reasonable
(09:15):
cost as well. So it's costing them on average about
forty six dollars per week per year, which is quite cheap.
For a mitigation option, and yeah, they're getting this. We're
seeing now these substantial reductions in the research setting, so
that's really encouraging.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And plantain itself, let's get a little bit into the
science of it. Now, why is it good?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
At what is doing?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So plantain's working in a number of different ways. We
have some fairly well known effects that plantain has on
urinary nitrogen. So the urine patch of a cow is
the biggest source of nitrogen leaching, and it has a
high amount of nitrogen in there and too much for
(09:58):
the plant to use, and then we we end up
with some of it leaching at the bottom. So if
we can reduce the amount of nitrogen in that urine patch,
then we can reduce the amount of leaching. And that's
that's the first two mechanisms. So one is that plantains
high in water and therefore we end up with a
dilution of the effect of plantain, so a dilution of
(10:22):
nitrogen in the urine because animals are peeing out more.
And the second one is that just the way that
plantains made up nutritionally, we have more of the nitrogen
going to dung and milk and less going into the urine,
so we actually get less nitrogen per day coming out
(10:43):
as urine. Those effects in urine are currently able to
be modeled in the Overseer model, and so on average,
the farms that we model have about a six percent
reduction in nitrogen leaching for every ten percent plantain. The
heart that's not currently modeled in Overseer is what we
call our soil mechanisms. So in the soil we know
(11:08):
that plantain is able to we end up with less drainage,
so less water goes below the root zone and therefore
it takes less nitrogen with it. And that effect is
most likely because plantain is slightly less efficient at using water.
(11:28):
It's higher in water content and the leaf and it's
losing more water and so therefore it drains less. The
other effects that's going on is that plantain is flowing
down the process of converting the ammonium which comes out
in the urine patch into nitrate and nitrates the form
(11:51):
that tends to leach, and what that does is it
simply gives the plant a better chance to use nitrogen
before it's lost, so it's slowing down that process. And
then lastly, relatively new finding is that we're finding plantain
is incorporating more nitrogen into the soil microbiome, and so
we get a greater amount of activity of the bugs
(12:14):
going on in the soil, and those are kind of
eating up all the nitrogen and holding onto it a
bit more, and so therefore it's not available to be leached.
So lots going on there, Michelle, in terms of the science,
and at the moment, we're working pretty hard to quantify
the effects of those soil mechanisms and so that they can,
(12:36):
by the end of our program be incorporated into overseer
and we see then the full benefit of plantain like
we're seeing at Lincoln, be reflected in that overseer model.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Wow, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of positives
with this plantain as well. And you mentioned there's a
few different types of plantain, right, I'm an excuse, I'm
not a pasture scientist, but some of your stafo is
use eco plantain. But are there any others that help
with nitrogen leaching?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah? So quite important is that all of our studies
so far have used either agratonic or tonic plantain. Tonics
no longer commercially available, and agratonic is marketed as ecotane.
So Ecotaane is the plantain that's been used in all
of our studies and we're very confident therefore that it
(13:27):
will reduce nitrogen leaching. Over the past few years, we
have done some work as a program to look at
other commercially available cultivars and what is the potential of
these cultivars to reduce nitrogen leaching, and we have found
that some of the traits that drive reductions in nitrogen
leaching do vary across cultivars. But we are currently working
(13:52):
on analyzing those results and we'll have some messages for
farmers about recommendations as to the types of plantains that
are like to be effective over the next few months.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And something else that I found out quite interesting about
this plantain is that beyond reducing nitrogen leaching, there's some
research that's come out from New Zealand and Ireland that
indicates that the plantain may also reduce methane and nitrous
oxide emissions. And you're doing there's more WHEREK going on?
Was this?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Can you tell us little bit about that?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Sure? So, for the same reasons that plantain reduces nitrogen leaching,
it's also able to reduce nitros oxide emissions, and so
certainly a reduction in nitrogen in the urine patch has
a direct effect on plantain and it's I'm sorry on
nitrosoxide emissions. But more exciting is some larger reductions that
(14:40):
have been measured via those soil mechanisms, and the results
have varied somewhat, and so there's been anything from no
reduction in a couple of studies through to really large
reductions like sixty seventy percent, and so at the moment
we are working with an aligned programs, we've been looking
at can we actually quantify that in a similar way
(15:04):
to what we're doing with our soil mechanisms for the
nitrate leaching side, and potentially even looking to get that
into the greenhouse gas inventory, which is quite exciting. On
the methane side, there's been seven studies so far who
where plantain has been looked at for reducing methane emissions,
and those studies are really promising, particularly in methane efficiency,
(15:28):
which is the reduction in amount of met fane per
kilograms milk solids produced. But again results have been reasonably
variable and it's a bit hard to get a so
far a dose response, so how much plantain you need
to achieve a certain amount of methane emission reduction. So
there's currently a study going on at Lincoln University where
(15:53):
they are PhD students are starting out looking at different
proportions of plantain and the effect on methane emissions through
an entire season. And so that study is just kicking
off now and we've got high hopes that that's going
to give us a bit more of a clue on
the ghost response and through different parts of the season.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I look forward to hearing more about that study because
obviously methane ambissions all that is a very hot topic
at the moment, and there's a lot of stuff going
on in that space and science space of how to
reduce it. I mean, planting pasture that could change it.
Seems like a very easy, maybe cost effective way to
do it.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
So hopefully that.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Works out and we'll have farmers listening to this at
the moment thinking wanting to know more about how it
affects performance and production on farm. Have you got any
results there around like say, milk production or anything like that.
Does it affect anything like that plantain?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah? Well, circling back to our farm lit trial is
probably the best place to look where we've measured plantain
in whole farm systems. We've seen at Lincoln, for example,
there was no difference between our treatments on milk production,
and similarly at Massy we didn't have any didn't see
any effect of having plantain in the system on milk production.
(17:11):
The pasta production. We've got a number of pasture curves
across the country and what we tend to find is
that there's very slightly reduced pasta growth through the late
winter early spring and then increased past to growth through
the late spring summer period. But in general the pasta
(17:33):
curves line up pretty well with perennial rye grass clover
pastures and similarly the management requirements. You can graze swords
with plantain in a very similar way to what you
can with just normal perennial rye grass clover. So the
partner farmers that we've been working with fine that it
(17:55):
fits quite well with their existing systems and they haven't
had change much from having plantain in the system.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And obviously it helps with farm performance and production. So
I'm guessing maybe it's going to be a bit of
a money savor and the future if these results are
looking the way they're looking at the moment.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
For farmers, the thing is, if.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
You need to reduce nitrogen leaching, then plantain is a
more cost effective option in most cases compared to other
mitigation options such as reducing substantial reductions in nitrogen fertilizer
and feed inputs, which go alongside reductions in stocking rate effectively,
(18:38):
the intensification changes to wintering systems, investment in infrastructure to
stand animals off pastures, those are the kinds of things,
particularly where we start to get up to those larger
reductions in nitrogen leaching. To get equivalent levels of reduction
to what you have with plantain in the system, you
(19:01):
have to spend more on those sorts of mitigations. So
I think that's kind of why we started out on
this program, is to test plantain as a mitigation option,
because it is an option that's low cost and something
that can be relatively easily integrated into an existing system
(19:23):
without having huge impacts on the profitability.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
With these programs. What's next? Is there anything in the future.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You were saying that it was ending, and I think
February twenty twenty eight it's been going for just about
seven years.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
By that point, I think you were saying.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
What's the future of these programs with research?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, So on the high priority list is to publish
all our research into scientific journals. That's an important goal
for us, to make sure that we can put it
all together and communicate both to the science community and
to farmers. And all of this information is current being
packaged as well. For on our website. We've got new
(20:05):
pages up at the moment at the high level on
plantain and the program results, but also we're developing regional
pages so that if you're sitting in Southland or you're
sitting in Canterbury, you can pull up a page and
understand how best to get plantain into the system and
see the stories from our partner farmers, which I think
is quite important. And then next is to get this
(20:29):
soil mechanism into the Overseer model. So we really want
to be able to reflect the full impact of plantain
on the reduction in nitrogen lynching, so working with Overseer
to make sure that we do that accurately over the
next twelve months is a key priority. We are following
along with the methane and nuch sooxide side of things,
(20:51):
and particularly looking at the potential to get those sail
mechanisms for nitrosoxide into the overseer model and potentially into
the greenhouse gas inventory. And yeah, so those are the
key priorities. And then to get to get the adoption
on farm Michelle, So we really want farmers to be
giving this a go, and if we can get the
(21:13):
adoption into those nitrogen sensitive catchments, we hope to see
a meaningful benefit to the water. Which also leads us
on to we've got a new program Michelle. I don't
know that we mentioned that earlier, but they're responsible dairy
programs just kicking off as well, with big goals around
improving or reducing environmental footprint while increasing the productivity of
(21:37):
the sector. So the plantain program feeds nicely into that
as one of the options for including into farm systems
to achieve those goals. So, yeah, kicking that off at
the same time over the next twelve.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Months, something else that just came to my mind. If
farmers are listening to this and they think, oh, this
is something I might want to try on my farm
at a certain date in or how could that happen
do you know.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
In terms of just trying plantain.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Or yeah, if they wanted to find out more from
darien Zed or your south or your team about giving
it a go on their farm and measuring it, is
there a way they can do that?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yes, absolutely, So firstly, drop into our website. We've got
plenty of information on how to get started with plantain,
get in touch with your seed merchant, and i'd probably, yeah,
at this stage, ask for ecotain to be included in
the seed mix. And in terms of measuring it, that's
a really good question. Certainly for those farmers who are
(22:37):
needing to reduce nitrogen leeching and report the benefits to
a regional council or regulatory body, they do need to
know how much plantain they've got, and so on our
website we have a tall visual assessment guide to assess
how much plantain you've got on a farm or in
a paddock based on a set of guided photographs, and
(22:59):
so you can go on there and have a look
and do a visual assessment. And we're developing a new
app which is able to record the photos and the
assessments and report that to a regulatory body. And if
you're interested in helping us with the pilot of that
app then certainly reach out to darien z and we'd
be happy.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
To take you on excellent stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Well, it sounds like a pardon the pun here, Kate,
but this research might be one for the poolroom in
the future. Thank you so much for your time today,
and I look forward to hearing more about your research,
seeing these journal articles, and reading a bit more about
what comes out of it now.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Thanks very much, Michelle, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
That was Kate Franson, diarian Zid's senior project manager. If
you would like to find out more about plantain and
the Plantain Potency and Practice Program, you can have a
look on the DIARYINZID website Dearienzid dot co dot inzid
Welcome to another Diary in ZiT update. For this episode,
I'm talking to Kate Franson, who is a senior project
manager at Deary in ZID about plantain research and some
of the exciting new results being discovered from farm lit
trials and how plantain can have a positive impact on
farm performance and production.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hi Kate, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I'm great? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
And we were talking off here a little bit about
where you originally came from, and I feel like we
need to share this fact with the listeners. Now, the
place in Australia that you came.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
From, what was it called Bonnie Dune?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And if our listeners recognize that they may have seen
the movie of the Castle, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
That's right, Yes, we're going to Bonnie Dune. Is the
saying in the Castle?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I love that fun factor.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Now in Hamilton, You've been in New Zealand for quite
some time now though.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yes, the last eleven years. I spent my first couple
of years in New Zealand in Lincoln and working in
farm systems. Dairy Farm Systems Consultant Certification was the first
program that I led there and then moving up to Hamilton.
I now live with my husband, Tony, who's from quite
(01:07):
a dairy farming background up here in the way Kadow
and joined his family up here. So we've been here
now for the last eight or nine years.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh, you're a key weed then, pretty much, I think
we can call it right now.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Okay, I got my citizenship, so you're.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Actually genuinely one. There we go.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We can go that way genuinely.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Okay. So let's get onto what today's program is about. Now.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
This plantain program is actually really interesting. The studies, some
of them, it's the first time they've been done on
a full farm sort of let working farm sort of
situation as well. Can you tell us a little bit
more about the study and flesh it out a little
bit for us?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sure? At the higher level the Plantain Potency in Practice
program now we're now sixth of seven years where a
collaborative research initiative led by darien Z and funded by MPI,
darien Z, PGG Rights and Seeds in Fonterra and we
have lots of partners so we're working in partnership with
Lincoln UNI, Massive UNI, Lincoln Agritech and Bioeconomy Science Institute,
(02:08):
so the new BSI and we've now been working in
the program for yeah, five years and we've just got
eighteen months to go. So the key focus is to
understand and quantify the effect of plantain on nitrogen leaching
and profitability at farm scale, while we're also working with
(02:28):
farmers across New Zealand. We've had up to thirty seven
partner farmers in the program in five regions to develop
management strategies for integrating plantain into their farm systems.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Excell And now that's quite a long time to run
a study for people out there who don't have a
science background. The big understandings of science research is the
links of time and the amount of tiss subjects that
you've got as what its way to research as you
know two ks. Now what these Lincoln studies. We don't
talk about the definite size of them, but they're quite
(03:03):
large and the timeframe is actually quite long, so the
results must be pretty diffinite.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, yeah, so we've had two farm sort of farm
scale research studies. One at massiw which we've talked about previously,
but it was sort of an on off grazing, so
animals come into an area, adjust to a diet and
then graze a plot where leaching is measured and then
away they go again around the rest of the farm,
(03:30):
whereas this Lincoln one. Oh, so that one was run
for five years and we've got some results from that.
This latest one that we're reporting on was at the
Lincoln University Research Theairy Farm, and here we had what
we call farmlets, so closed farm systems. We had two
treatments where leaching was measured and so one of them
(03:50):
was just had perennial rygrass and white clover, and the
other had three kilos of plantain sewn into that perennial
grass white clover mix. We also had a third treatment
where leeching wasn't measured, where a higher level of plantain
was zoned, so it's six kilos per hectare. So those
three treatments were run at Lincoln over a period of
(04:13):
four years. So we had full farm systems data collected
for the four year period as well as nitrogen leaching
measured with devices called suction cups, which was set up
in a grid with over seven hundred suction cups across
the site. What is a farmlets. So each of these
treatments were replicated three times. We had three mini farms
(04:36):
running as each treatment and each one had nine cows
and about three point two hectares and they're just running
around a full rotation, normal sort of farm system, just
on a smaller scale. So yeah, all of the ins
and outs, so production and profitability, the pasture growth, all
of those things measured over that four year period, as
(04:58):
well as the nuitchygen leaching measured using the suction cups
which were set six hundred miles down below the surface.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It sounds really fascinating. I'd love to come and see
that operation. I love seeing these science experiments and action
because it always took someone to come up with the
idea of how they're going to even collect the data
in the first place. And as we were talking about
off yea, you know this modeling, these results which we'll
talk about shortly, from these trials, they weren't just chucked
into AI their real world results, aren't they absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So when we talk about nitrogen leaching off the Lincoln
site and at Massy, we're not talking about a modeled result.
We're talking about the actual measured nitrogen leaching below the surface.
So with plantain, that's been and we'll talk a little
bit about that in a minute, but that's been a
real part of the challenge is to work out exactly
how plantain is working. And we've had lots of measurements
(05:50):
in urine and in the in cow urine, what's the
nitrogen level coming through, And we've had measurements usingly simmeters.
I'm just trying to understand what's going on in the soil.
But putting all that together under a full farm system
and measuring the actual night rate leaching that's coming through,
(06:10):
that's kind of what gives you the real indication I
think as to what's going on.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, so this isn't just lab something grown in a
lab and tested, or one cow or nine cow sitting
in a lab being tested. This is under real farm conditions,
isn't it so that you farmers know whether it's going
to affect their production or not from these results.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Absolutely? Yep, that's right.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So what's the results these talk a little bit more
about these What kind of stuff have you found so far?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Well, probably the highlight, Michelle, is that we've seen a
real reduction and a consistent reduction in nitrogen leeching over
the four years of the trial. So nightrate leeching there
was a thirty three percent reduction on average over the
four years. So we had an average of eighteen helos
per hectare that leached from the preenial rayhgrass clover treatment
(07:01):
compared to twelve kilos per hectare per year leaching out
of the treatment with plantain. And what's quite encouraging about
these results is that, you know, it's a challenge to
get high levels of plantain to persist in your pastures
for a period of time. Plantains not a long lived perennial.
(07:23):
It starts out when you sew into a mixed sword
at about thirty percent plantain, and then it's dropping down
to about fifteen percent after the second year and about
ten percent after the third year, and so trying to
maintain those really high levels across the whole farm is challenging. However,
(07:45):
what we've found at Lincoln is that even though we
did see that drop off in plantain percentage plateauing at
about twelve percent into the third and fourth years, we
still saw this consistent reduction in nitrogen leaching through the
whole through the period of the trial. Now, so that's
(08:06):
really encouraging. And then to put with that, we're also
seeing that farmers who are working close by to these
farms that this research site in the mid Canterbury region,
they're able to achieve about this ten to fifteen percent
plantain across their farms. They do that by putting plantain
(08:28):
seed into the seed mix of all their new pasture swords,
as well as broadcasting a couple of kilos of plantain
mixing it in with their fertilizer in spring each year.
So yeah, that's probably the highlight I think, Michelle.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, that low level still being found to be viable
and useful as differitely a huge thing because I'd imagine
that's a big question for farmers, isn't it the maintenance
of it and the ability for it to actually work
even at low levels.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yes, absolutely, you know that's been one of the biggest
questions is that, you know, is plantain still having an
effect even if it's only making up about ten percent
of the pasture swood? And I think I think that
because you know, that's the level that farmers seem to
be able to achieve relatively easily and at a reasonable
(09:15):
cost as well. So it's costing them on average about
forty six dollars per week per year, which is quite cheap.
For a mitigation option, and yeah, they're getting this. We're
seeing now these substantial reductions in the research setting, so
that's really encouraging.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And plantain itself, let's get a little bit into the
science of it. Now, why is it good?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
At what is doing?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So plantain's working in a number of different ways. We
have some fairly well known effects that plantain has on
urinary nitrogen. So the urine patch of a cow is
the biggest source of nitrogen leaching, and it has a
high amount of nitrogen in there and too much for
(09:58):
the plant to use, and then we we end up
with some of it leaching at the bottom. So if
we can reduce the amount of nitrogen in that urine patch,
then we can reduce the amount of leaching. And that's
that's the first two mechanisms. So one is that plantains
high in water and therefore we end up with a
dilution of the effect of plantain, so a dilution of
(10:22):
nitrogen in the urine because animals are peeing out more.
And the second one is that just the way that
plantains made up nutritionally, we have more of the nitrogen
going to dung and milk and less going into the urine,
so we actually get less nitrogen per day coming out
(10:43):
as urine. Those effects in urine are currently able to
be modeled in the Overseer model, and so on average,
the farms that we model have about a six percent
reduction in nitrogen leaching for every ten percent plantain. The
heart that's not currently modeled in Overseer is what we
call our soil mechanisms. So in the soil we know
(11:08):
that plantain is able to we end up with less drainage,
so less water goes below the root zone and therefore
it takes less nitrogen with it. And that effect is
most likely because plantain is slightly less efficient at using water.
(11:28):
It's higher in water content and the leaf and it's
losing more water and so therefore it drains less. The
other effects that's going on is that plantain is flowing
down the process of converting the ammonium which comes out
in the urine patch into nitrate and nitrates the form
(11:51):
that tends to leach, and what that does is it
simply gives the plant a better chance to use nitrogen
before it's lost, so it's slowing down that process. And
then lastly, relatively new finding is that we're finding plantain
is incorporating more nitrogen into the soil microbiome, and so
we get a greater amount of activity of the bugs
(12:14):
going on in the soil, and those are kind of
eating up all the nitrogen and holding onto it a
bit more, and so therefore it's not available to be leached.
So lots going on there, Michelle, in terms of the science,
and at the moment, we're working pretty hard to quantify
the effects of those soil mechanisms and so that they can,
(12:36):
by the end of our program be incorporated into overseer
and we see then the full benefit of plantain like
we're seeing at Lincoln, be reflected in that overseer model.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Wow, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of positives
with this plantain as well. And you mentioned there's a
few different types of plantain, right, I'm an excuse, I'm
not a pasture scientist, but some of your stafo is
use eco plantain. But are there any others that help
with nitrogen leaching?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah? So quite important is that all of our studies
so far have used either agratonic or tonic plantain. Tonics
no longer commercially available, and agratonic is marketed as ecotane.
So Ecotaane is the plantain that's been used in all
of our studies and we're very confident therefore that it
(13:27):
will reduce nitrogen leaching. Over the past few years, we
have done some work as a program to look at
other commercially available cultivars and what is the potential of
these cultivars to reduce nitrogen leaching, and we have found
that some of the traits that drive reductions in nitrogen
leaching do vary across cultivars. But we are currently working
(13:52):
on analyzing those results and we'll have some messages for
farmers about recommendations as to the types of plantains that
are like to be effective over the next few months.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And something else that I found out quite interesting about
this plantain is that beyond reducing nitrogen leaching, there's some
research that's come out from New Zealand and Ireland that
indicates that the plantain may also reduce methane and nitrous
oxide emissions. And you're doing there's more WHEREK going on?
Was this?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Can you tell us little bit about that?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Sure? So, for the same reasons that plantain reduces nitrogen leaching,
it's also able to reduce nitros oxide emissions, and so
certainly a reduction in nitrogen in the urine patch has
a direct effect on plantain and it's I'm sorry on
nitrosoxide emissions. But more exciting is some larger reductions that
(14:40):
have been measured via those soil mechanisms, and the results
have varied somewhat, and so there's been anything from no
reduction in a couple of studies through to really large
reductions like sixty seventy percent, and so at the moment
we are working with an aligned programs, we've been looking
at can we actually quantify that in a similar way
(15:04):
to what we're doing with our soil mechanisms for the
nitrate leaching side, and potentially even looking to get that
into the greenhouse gas inventory, which is quite exciting. On
the methane side, there's been seven studies so far who
where plantain has been looked at for reducing methane emissions,
and those studies are really promising, particularly in methane efficiency,
(15:28):
which is the reduction in amount of met fane per
kilograms milk solids produced. But again results have been reasonably
variable and it's a bit hard to get a so
far a dose response, so how much plantain you need
to achieve a certain amount of methane emission reduction. So
there's currently a study going on at Lincoln University where
(15:53):
they are PhD students are starting out looking at different
proportions of plantain and the effect on methane emissions through
an entire season. And so that study is just kicking
off now and we've got high hopes that that's going
to give us a bit more of a clue on
the ghost response and through different parts of the season.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I look forward to hearing more about that study because
obviously methane ambissions all that is a very hot topic
at the moment, and there's a lot of stuff going
on in that space and science space of how to
reduce it. I mean, planting pasture that could change it.
Seems like a very easy, maybe cost effective way to
do it.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
So hopefully that.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Works out and we'll have farmers listening to this at
the moment thinking wanting to know more about how it
affects performance and production on farm. Have you got any
results there around like say, milk production or anything like that.
Does it affect anything like that plantain?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah? Well, circling back to our farm lit trial is
probably the best place to look where we've measured plantain
in whole farm systems. We've seen at Lincoln, for example,
there was no difference between our treatments on milk production,
and similarly at Massy we didn't have any didn't see
any effect of having plantain in the system on milk production.
(17:11):
The pasta production. We've got a number of pasture curves
across the country and what we tend to find is
that there's very slightly reduced pasta growth through the late
winter early spring and then increased past to growth through
the late spring summer period. But in general the pasta
(17:33):
curves line up pretty well with perennial rye grass clover
pastures and similarly the management requirements. You can graze swords
with plantain in a very similar way to what you
can with just normal perennial rye grass clover. So the
partner farmers that we've been working with fine that it
(17:55):
fits quite well with their existing systems and they haven't
had change much from having plantain in the system.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And obviously it helps with farm performance and production. So
I'm guessing maybe it's going to be a bit of
a money savor and the future if these results are
looking the way they're looking at the moment.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
For farmers, the thing is, if.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
You need to reduce nitrogen leaching, then plantain is a
more cost effective option in most cases compared to other
mitigation options such as reducing substantial reductions in nitrogen fertilizer
and feed inputs, which go alongside reductions in stocking rate effectively,
(18:38):
the intensification changes to wintering systems, investment in infrastructure to
stand animals off pastures, those are the kinds of things,
particularly where we start to get up to those larger
reductions in nitrogen leaching. To get equivalent levels of reduction
to what you have with plantain in the system, you
(19:01):
have to spend more on those sorts of mitigations. So
I think that's kind of why we started out on
this program, is to test plantain as a mitigation option,
because it is an option that's low cost and something
that can be relatively easily integrated into an existing system
(19:23):
without having huge impacts on the profitability.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
With these programs. What's next? Is there anything in the future.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You were saying that it was ending, and I think
February twenty twenty eight it's been going for just about
seven years.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
By that point, I think you were saying.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
What's the future of these programs with research?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, So on the high priority list is to publish
all our research into scientific journals. That's an important goal
for us, to make sure that we can put it
all together and communicate both to the science community and
to farmers. And all of this information is current being
packaged as well. For on our website. We've got new
(20:05):
pages up at the moment at the high level on
plantain and the program results, but also we're developing regional
pages so that if you're sitting in Southland or you're
sitting in Canterbury, you can pull up a page and
understand how best to get plantain into the system and
see the stories from our partner farmers, which I think
is quite important. And then next is to get this
(20:29):
soil mechanism into the Overseer model. So we really want
to be able to reflect the full impact of plantain
on the reduction in nitrogen lynching, so working with Overseer
to make sure that we do that accurately over the
next twelve months is a key priority. We are following
along with the methane and nuch sooxide side of things,
(20:51):
and particularly looking at the potential to get those sail
mechanisms for nitrosoxide into the overseer model and potentially into
the greenhouse gas inventory. And yeah, so those are the
key priorities. And then to get to get the adoption
on farm Michelle, So we really want farmers to be
giving this a go, and if we can get the
(21:13):
adoption into those nitrogen sensitive catchments, we hope to see
a meaningful benefit to the water. Which also leads us
on to we've got a new program Michelle. I don't
know that we mentioned that earlier, but they're responsible dairy
programs just kicking off as well, with big goals around
improving or reducing environmental footprint while increasing the productivity of
(21:37):
the sector. So the plantain program feeds nicely into that
as one of the options for including into farm systems
to achieve those goals. So, yeah, kicking that off at
the same time over the next twelve.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Months, something else that just came to my mind. If
farmers are listening to this and they think, oh, this
is something I might want to try on my farm
at a certain date in or how could that happen
do you know.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
In terms of just trying plantain.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Or yeah, if they wanted to find out more from
darien Zed or your south or your team about giving
it a go on their farm and measuring it, is
there a way they can do that?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yes, absolutely, So firstly, drop into our website. We've got
plenty of information on how to get started with plantain,
get in touch with your seed merchant, and i'd probably, yeah,
at this stage, ask for ecotain to be included in
the seed mix. And in terms of measuring it, that's
a really good question. Certainly for those farmers who are
(22:37):
needing to reduce nitrogen leeching and report the benefits to
a regional council or regulatory body, they do need to
know how much plantain they've got, and so on our
website we have a tall visual assessment guide to assess
how much plantain you've got on a farm or in
a paddock based on a set of guided photographs, and
(22:59):
so you can go on there and have a look
and do a visual assessment. And we're developing a new
app which is able to record the photos and the
assessments and report that to a regulatory body. And if
you're interested in helping us with the pilot of that
app then certainly reach out to darien z and we'd
be happy.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
To take you on excellent stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Well, it sounds like a pardon the pun here, Kate,
but this research might be one for the poolroom in
the future. Thank you so much for your time today,
and I look forward to hearing more about your research,
seeing these journal articles, and reading a bit more about
what comes out of it now.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Thanks very much, Michelle, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
That was Kate Franson, diarian Zid's senior project manager. If
you would like to find out more about plantain and
the Plantain Potency and Practice Program, you can have a
look on the DIARYINZID website Dearienzid dot co dot inzid
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