C C O G - Canterbury Commercial Organics Group
Field Days & Seminars
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News

Organic Pastoral Field Day October 30 & Soils Workshop - see newsletter 39 for more details

Organic Updates - information from workshops and seminars on topics ranging from weed control to animal health to managing risk

Organic horticulture course - new intake in October...more

 

Resources

Seminar Reports

Reduced Tillage seminar notes (ppt file - 3.13MB)

Organic Transplant Media seminar notes (ppt - 0.99MB)

Animal health seminar (pdf)

How to market your organic produce seminar (pdf)

Opportunities for organic seeds seminar (pdf)

Newsletters

CCOG has produced a newsletter since 1997. In August 2003 the newsletter was renamed "Organics in Canterbury" when the group combined forces with a Sustainable Farming Fund organic farming group and other sponsors (Heinz Watties, the Biological Husbandry Unit (BHU) at Lincoln University, and Canterbury Organic - the certifying body for small scale growers).

To view back issues of these newsletters, please click here.

Organic Updates

This series of information sheets was written to summarise information and research results from the SFF organic farming projects. The updates cover everything from mechanical weed management to animal health.

Title & Content of Organic Updates

  1. Effective Microorganisms
  2. Mechanical weed management of vegetables & cereals
  3. Cover crop mulching, minimum tillage & organics
  4. Soil foodweb & compost teas
  5. Animal Health - mineral nutrition
  6. Animal Health - internal parasites
  7. Risk management
  8. Mixed species pastures
  9. Soil health & fertility - physical, chemical & biological fertility
  10. Soil health & fertility - pasture phase
  11. Soil health & fertility - soil testing
  12. Soil health & fertility - cover crop - green manure crop trial
  13. Soil health & fertility - NZ cover crop literature review
  14. Holistic grazing management
  15. Weed management - physical
  16. Organic stock management
  17. Growing organic process peas
  18. Growing organic carrot seed
  19. Undersowing
  20. Kowhai Farm

Other Sources of Information

BHU Crop Protocols: A series of guides to growing organic vegetables which has been produced by the BHU, Lincoln University.
http://www.bhu.co.nz/crop.html

BHU Calendar: A very useful calendar for organic growers.
http://www.bhu.co.nz/calendar.html

OANZ Growers Information: Organics Aotearoa New Zealand
http://www.oanz.org.nz

Magazines: OrganicNZ is a magazine produced by The Soil and Health Association of New Zealand.
http://www.organicnz.org/

Books: The following list is a sample of the many good books available on organic growing:

  • D. Teulon, P. Cameron, G. Bourdot and D. Curtin. Plant Protection in Organic Arable and Vegetable Crops - a grower's resource Published by the New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food Research Limited. 2005.
  • Coleman, E. The New Organic Grower. 1989
  • Bowman, G. 1997. Steel in the field: A farmers guide to weed management tools. Sustainable agriculture Network.
  • Davies, B., D. Eagle & B. Finney. 1993. Soil management, 5 ed. Farming Press Books, Ipswich.
  • Lampkin, N. 1994. Organic Farming. Farming Press Books, Ipswich. (highly recommended)
  • Blake, F. 1994. Organic Farming and Growing. Crowood Press, Swindon.