The Sustainable Vegetable System (SVS) is a four-year project partnership doing extensive research into nitrogen flows. It resulted in the release of the SVS Tool earlier in 2024 and is now focused on getting people to use the free online tool.
SVS is a nitrogen budgeting tool to help growers optimise their nitrogen management practices.
Sustainable Vegetable Systems (SVS) Tool
It is a decision support tool, with emphasis on the word ‘support, where growers typically know their crops and land very well, they have often been doing this for a long time and they have a fertiliser plan in place. The SVS Tool complements their knowledge and makes it easy for growers to calculate how different factors – such as weather and existing nitrogen levels in the soil – impact how much fertiliser they need this season.
For growers the power of the tool is, one, optimising your fertiliser inputs and, two, being confident that they have based their decisions on what is happening in the system right now.
Benefits
- It builds greater knowledge and understanding of a reasonably complicated system by highlighting the multiple different nitrogen inputs that exists, not just fertiliser.
- The tool helps growers factor in how much nitrogen is already in the soil, how much is potentially going to turn up through soil mineralisation, and through crop residue breakdown.
- Using the SVS Tool and applying it, increases understanding of nitrogen fertilisation needs
- There is a wealth of data from many years of controlled field trials and intensive on farm monitoring of soil and plant nitrogen levels, which has been developed to provide practical, functional information for growers to guide decisions about fertilisation
- The SVS Tool accesses valuable real time insights, which aims to enhance crop performance and by getting nitrogen management practices right – this will also deliver positive environmental benefits.
Sign Up Process
The free online SVS Tool has a simple sign-up process that only requires a name and email address. Once users have logged on, getting started requires a farm and paddock name, the nearest weather station (selected from a drop-down menu), crop type and stage, and variety.
Growers can create a login and use the online tool for free https://svstool.co.nz/
Project Partners
- Potatoes New Zealand
- Ministry for Primary Industries
- Plant & Food Research
- Horticulture New Zealand
- Vegetables New Zealand
- Vegetable Research and Innovation
- Process Vegetables NZ
- Onions NZ
- NZ Buttercup Squash Council
