One of the wonderful aspects of teaching is seeing former student’s success. Florian Brinkmann came from Germany to undertake Master’s level courses in 2005/2006 and visited while the country with his family. After a number of careers, Flo is now integral in establishing a venture capital fund for sustainable start-ups with a strong ecological impact – Planet A.
Our work on paddock scale nitrous oxide and carbon balance measurements appeared on
Alumni Sheree Balvert (Ballance Feartliser) teamed up with Louis to make a short video on soil quality/health.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh0BMWzLJTA&feature=youtu.be
Louis, Aaron and Anne went out to Troughton farm to do some filming with Rural Delivery crew, Kirsty and Richard. Photo credit: Anne Wecking
With Vic Arcus and colleagues Bella Duncan (University of Victoria, Welington) and Liyin Liang (Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research) we were recently successful in obtaining a Marsden grant on temperature response of the biosphere.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=12298321
Louis, Allycia and Thomas had a wonderful visit to Kaiate falls to look at possible sites for testing DGTs. We were hosted by Pa Ropata (Rob McGowan).
In further excellent news: Charlotte Roberton and Hannah Dougherty submitted their MSc thesis also.
Charlotte modelled options for reducing nitrate leaching on dairy farms identifying the important role that Plantain in the sward might play.
Hannah used diffusive gradients through thin films (DGT) to determine nitrate removal rates in a denitrifying bioreactor.
Great news Jacob submitted his MSc thesis today. Jacob measured methane emissions using eddy covariance and chambers.
We were very excited to be awarded Marsden funding looking at the temperature response of the biosphere with our close collaborator Vic Arcus
Louis gave a presentation at University at Melbourne hosted by Professor Deli Chen. Rewarded with a bottle of wine and a wonderful couple of meals! The wine was made by students under the supervision of viticulturists at Dookie campus of the University (around 210 km northeast of Melbourne). The wine is named after winemaker and lecturer Chris Barnes’ black Labrador Bert.
