Water plays a key part of transforming land use. Building on Kaipara Kai, Kaipara Water further supports valuable land diversification opportunities. Two demonstration sites are set up within the community, showcasing different types of irrigation and the ways in which this can support specific crops.
Demonstration site one is on iwi land at Maunganui Bluff north of Dargaville. Kaipara District Council is working with Te Roroa to showcase irrigation that can be easily scaled up or down, depending on what crops are being watered. For season 1 the site hosted an in-ground irrigation system managed remotely via a web application to deliver water and fertiliser to vegetable crops in precise amounts. Season 1 crops included yam, watermelon, kamokamo, sweetcorn. Squash Delica and T-133 (another Kabocha squash) was planted for the second season.
Demonstration site two is in Te Kopuru. A centre pivot irrigator is installed which has a 242-metre span and can irrigate roughly 10 hectares. Water is gradually taken from a nearby creek under an existing resource consent. The Te Kopuru site (site two) is also located within the future water storage scheme area managed by Te Tai Tokerau Water Trust. Crops for season 1 included soybean/edamame, beetroot, watermelon, and kaanga ma. High-oleic sunflowers were selected for the second season. Continual wet conditions meant the site was unable to be sown with sunflowers. Machinery to prepare or even plant in the three-month window was not able to operate due to the wet ground. It became too late to plant sunflowers to get them through to maturity before winter.
Northland Inc are contracted to manage the demonstration sites.
Harvest carried out by the Te Roroa Taiororua team.
SEASON 2 (2022/2023)
SEASON 1 (2021/2022)