Feeding the world’s growing population
New Zealand’s reputation as a quality food producer is growing.
The Fertiliser Association of New Zealand promotes and encourages responsible and scientifically-based nutrient management.
Fertiliser Application
The fertiliser spreading industries (ground and aerial spreaders) have their own Codes of Practice.
The process of spreading fertiliser on a property is a critical part of managing fertiliser use. The objective should be to achieve evenness of spread at the required rate in order to maximise economic return from the investment while ensuring minimal environmental impact. Spreading should be even within an LMU, but differential rates are expected between LMU’s.
The key factors that will influence this objective are:
- the environmental understanding of the person doing the spreading
- the skill and competency of the spreader
- the suitability of the machinery being used (i.e. to spread fertiliser accurately)
Spreading fertiliser to maximise returns and avoid adverse impacts is a technically demanding task. While some land managers spread some or all of their fertiliser themselves, spreading by Spreadmark accredited spreading companies is recommended.
The person spreading fertiliser has four main objectives:
- to spread the fertiliser at the desired rate and as evenly as possible over the target area
- to avoid any fertiliser directly entering surface water
- to control wind drift to avoid any fertiliser indirectly entering or landing on surface water, or going outside the boundaries of the target zone
- to ensure that the work is undertaken safely
