Soil Science Tour

The tour for my SOSC342-Soil Resources class was much more hands on than the Viticulture tour. It was four days instead of 2.5, and it was a much smaller group (12 students, 2 professors). It was a great time and a great academic experience.

Setting: We were on an intensive cropping farm (mainly grasses for seed) in Ashburton. The farmer uses variable rate irrigators, and is known in Canterbury as an innovator and leader in responsible water usage.

The Project: Electromagnetic (EM) mapping had been done on a number of fields on the property. The map data was acquired by dragging an EM device behind a four-wheeler as it drives back and forth across the entire field. The map had been made a few months before our arrival, so we had no role in the actual collecting of EM data.
EM measures the conductivity of the soil, so it is thought to be a proxy of total water holding capacity (WHC). Our job was to select certain sites in which to dig soil pits, describe those soils, and sample them for further work back in the lab. With the samples (lab work we will do in the coming weeks), we are to determine the Available Water capacity (AWC) and see if that correlates with EM as well. AWC is different from WHC in that it only measures the water that plants can access. Some water is held too tightly in the soil by clays and micropores, creating negative pressure (suction) on that water which plants roots cannot overcome.

What we did: The first two days were spent augering in various areas, some at random spots and some along determined transects. By doing this, we could get a rough estimate of the soil patterns in the area, and make early comparisons of EM data to things like soil type, texture, and depth to gravels. Two members from the government research institute LandCare were working with us, and it was great to learn field techniques from the experts. Using what we learned from the augering, we could determine where we wanted to dig soil pits.
The last two days were spent digging full soil pits. We split up into groups and got a lot of digging done. The ground was really hard in some places and required some heavy pick work. All pits were about 80-90cm deep on average, and probably about a square meter horizontally. Digging a good pit is an art, and requires the building of steps, a lot of cleaning up of surfaces, and careful calculation of the sun's movement in the sky; You needed to dig your pit so that when you finished it and were ready to desribe/photograph it, the sun would be directly facing the description face, eliminating any shadow. To do that well, you had to accurately guess how long it would take you to dig the pit.
Doing a pit description takes just as long as digging the actual pit. You have to categorize the horizons, note their depth, and then do tests for color, texture, strength, and structure. After that, undisturbed samples had to be taken in little metal cores from each horizon, which is a lot more labor-intensive than you think. By the end of the trip, our class had dug, fully described, and sampled 7 full pits. It was a lot of work, and a lot of good experience.

What Now?: Our whole class is going to be processing this data into a single group project. So, for the next month we will have very few lectures and be concentrating mainly on research, labwork, data analysis, and mapping for this project. I've never done a group project where the whole class is the only group. I think it will prove to be great experience for my studies in the future, especially next year's thesis.

Here are some pictures: I would have liked to take more, but we were pretty busy the whole time and I often had wet soil on my hands.

Soil Resources Tour

Field Tours During the Easter Break: Viticulture

I had two compulsory field tours over the Easter Break, one for Viticulture and one for Soil Resources.

For the Viticulture tour, our rather large class (greater than 50) met in Blenheim, which is in the New Zealand's Marlborough region. Not surprisingly, Marlborough is famous for its vineyards, so we spent 2.5 days traveling to vineyards and wineries of various scales (maybe 10 total?), speaking with owners, viticulturists, winemakers, gov't sciencists and marketers. One thing I realized more fully is that being successful in the wine industry requires a lot more than good grapes and quality wine. Success is largely due to market considerations, and people can do well even with lower quality wares. Right now, it's hard to make a lot of money with Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay because the market is flooded with it, so the more successful wineries are making money with their Riesling, Pinot Noir, rares, blends and low-alcohol varieties.

The biggest operations were less interesting to me, because the owners seemed all about profit and all about recognition. The smaller vineyards were much more enjoyable - The owners were so passionate about their jobs and just loved a really good glass of wine. They stepped out of the box, tried different things, and didn't seem so preoccupied with the market or strengthening their egos. I thought it funny that we did most of our tasting at the smaller vineyards, and the larger ones seemed less interested in us. I should have taken more pictures, but here are a few:

Viticulture Tour

And if any of you are in a restaurant and you see the "Staete Landt" (think state-land - it's Danish) label, go for one of those, because they were the most delicious wines, and they're made by the most passionate, down-to-earth bunch that we met. "Forrest" is good too, but it carries a huge ego with it.

Mt. Fishtail

Hey all,
I should start by apologizing for leaving y'all in the dark for so long. I was on break for the past 16 days, so that is why I had not posted in so long. I trust that the photos form Kahurangi NP will make up for it. Hopefully this entry will satisfy as well.

About a week after Kahurangi (the time in between I was in Blenheim for a Viticulture multi-day field trip - more on that later), I headed up to Mt. Richmond Forest Park with my friend Nick for a two day, two night excursion. The goal was to summit Mt. Fishtail. On Friday 9 April we camped out at the Mt. Fishtail trailhead. It got really cold down in the valley and we woke up to find frost on the ground. It warmed up quite a bit as the day went on however, and made for great hiking. After about an hour of gentle sloping trails through lush forest (which had giant fern trees - see photos), the track turned steeply uphill, and was unmercifully steep for the next 2.5 hours. We then reached a ridge, and had an easy half hour hike to Fishtail Hut. The hut was a tiny little building with four bunks and a small counter space. It was tied down on all four sides by metal cables, because it was situated right on the edge of a steep and unstable scree slope, which is probably exposed to high winds throughout the year. For us, however, the wind was low and the sun was high. After a short lunch break at the hut, Nick and I continued the last hour to the summit. It offered some really great views. We spent the night at the hut, and then hiked down at a quick pace, heading back to Christchurch later that day (Sunday). It was a very successful trip. See the pictures here:

Mt. Fishtail

Easter Break Travel Part 1: Kahurangi NP & Kaiteriteri Beach

To start the Easter Break I headed northwest with my friends Nick and Katie. We were headed to Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand’s newest and largest national park. Kahurangi is about 7 hours drive from Lincoln, so we decided to split it into two days. The first night we stayed at a small roadside campground. The next day we continued north and took a side trip to the beautiful Kaiteriteri Beach just north of the seaside town of Motueka. We were graced with sunny skies and relatively warm temperatures. Later that night we headed to Kahurangi and camped out beside the trailhead. The sun set around 7pm, and we had nothing to do for the night. At that point, Katie pulled out a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” which she had started reading a few weeks before. We took turns reading passages out loud to each other, and it was a lot of fun. (At this point, you may be rolling your eyes at me and calling me a huge nerd, which may be partially true, BUT it was really entertaining and we had few options). Thanks to Tolkien’s interesting story-telling, we had something to do for the other nights of the trip as well.

Kaiteriteri Beach

We started the three-day trek at about 10am on Saturday April 3^rd, leaving the car and thoughts of school behind us. The first day was a 6.5 hour trek along Cobb ridge, passing through scrubland, grassland, and patches of forest. The tramping took us across the “Tablelands” - a plateau composed of ancient seabed that has since been uplifted to a height of nearly 1000m above sea level. We found some interesting limestone outcrops and caves along the route. We spent the night at Salisbury Lodge, a 22-bunk hut at the southern edge of the plateau.

Kahurangi National Park - Day 1

Day 2 was a long day with constant changes in elevation. We first climbed off of the plateau and into the nearby valley, only to summit the grassy Gordon’s Pyramid. From the top, we could see Mt. Arthur, which we would summit later in the day. A partial descent down the backside of Gordon’s Pyramid brought us to a ridge, and then we steeply climbed through an incredible field of stone outcrops and sinkholes. Once atop the ridge, we dropped our packs and headed an hour further to the summit of Mt. Arthur, which was veiled in mist and fog. Visibility on the summit was low, but reaching the top remained rewarding. We headed down through the mist, grabbed our packs, and hiked the last hour through light rain, ending the day at Mt. Arthur Hut. We spent the night with a friendly family from New Zealand, who gave us hot “Milo” (think malted Ovaltine) and even joined in on our LOTR story-telling.

Kahurangi National Park - Day 2

Day 3 initially took us down into the lower valley, walking along wide, gentle sloping trails through vibrant forests. It was a great start to the 7 hour day. After a few river crossings along small wire bridges, the trail eventually turned upslope. From there it was a very steep and consistent climb up through the forest towards Cobb Ridge, where we started the trek. We achieved the ridge-top after a long and demanding push, and slowed our pace during the last easy hour, reaching the car park shortly after 4:30pm.

Kahurangi National Park - Day 3

We headed back into Motueka and spent the night at quite a nice hostel, taking time to shower, read more LOTR, eat chocolate, and drink some locally brewed ale. The next day, we headed to Blenheim for the Viticulture multi-day field trip that we had to attend.