VegNET
Wide Bay Burnett
About the Project
The VegNet 3.0 project will deliver various activities & studies targeted to the region’s Vegetable Producers focusing on 5 key areas of importance:
AgTech – facilitating better collaboration between Vegetable growers & AgTech businesses to promote current Ag technological and the potential adoption of these Agtech products into the industry.
Organic waste – identifying areas of ways to reduce post-harvest loss & develop better awareness between industries for potential value add solutions for Vegetable growers.
Coordinated Pest Management – the project aims to develop a strategic approach between growers, consultants & biosecurity Queensland to increase tracking & monitoring primarily of the Fallarmy worm (FAW).
Inorganic farm waste – developing better understanding of disposal & recycling options associated with agricultural waste plastics & while working with growers & associated industries on promoting business lead recycling programs & development of alternative products.
Input Costs – the project will assess both practices & products highlighting potential areas where better management & operational decisions can affect input costs.
In the Media
The Guardian Article | Thursday 19th April 2018
Robots, drones and sensors
WHERE in the world will you find a mechatronic engineer, a farmer,arobot and a decent egg and bacon sandwich all under the one roof? At the BFVG Agriculture Hub at Agrotrend!
Read More
Resources
Case Studies
Pests & Disease
Vegetable Leafminer Resources
Soil Health
Cover Crops in the Wide Bay Burnett
Fact sheet series: Building resilience to climate extremes
Trials
AMBIT Robotics have come onboard with the VegNET program in the Wide Bay Burnett to highlight the benefits to growers of having a well monitored crop, with the AMBIT robot working in Carter & Spencers Greenhouse facility at Moore Park and soon to commence phase 2 of the project at United Wholesale Growers.
This program is the first in Queensland for AMBIT & only their second commercial application of their robot in Australia. The crew have spent the past few months fine tuning & setting up the robot for its operational commencement in February, the 2 trials will monitor both Continental cucumbers and Eggplant crops at these protected cropping facilities.
The program aims to increase grower awareness of setting fruit, right through to harvest with the program giving daily updates to the grower manager of the facility. The project also aims to predict sales figures and labour requirements for each weeks harvest.
RapidAIM has teamed up with VegNet RDO & Hinkler Agtech Initiative to link in with growers in the Wide Bay Burnett to establish the first Automatic Fruit Fly Forecasting network, with over 30 traps deployed, across 8 farms throughout, Bundaberg, Childers, Wallaville & into the Burnett.
This program, developed by RapidAIM, is designed to showcase their product to the growers in the region, the hands-free, highly accurate and near live assessment of their mobile app based software & trapping systems. The program allows anyone in the region to access the forecasting data for the 2023 season.
To view this data, click on the link 
http://bit.ly/3HhYjst
Biosecurity
WEBINAR: Growing biofumigants – what variety and when | January 2020
In Part 1 the discussion focuses on:
- Biomass produced – how well they grew
- Glucosinolate production – how ‘hot’ was the biomass
WEBINAR: Growing biofumigants – what variety and when | January 2020
In Part 2 John discusses the following:
- Any pest and disease issues during growth
- Early indications of their impact on some soil-borne diseases.
InfoVeg: Vegetable Leafminer update | October 2018
The Vegetable leafminer is a pest of agricultural concern in many parts of the world. Between 2008 and 2015, the pest was detected on multiple islands in the Torres Strait.