AspireNZ, an interactive Internet-based system to help improve asparagus yield and quality has had an enthusiastic reception from growers, says Dr Derek Wilson.

Dr Wilson, who heads the Crop & Food Research team that developed the system, said the search for smarter ways to get their results out to growers had led to the innovative Net system developed by Chris Cloughley. AspireNZ is a "guinea pig" for similar systems for other crops, he says.

So far AspireNZ is being trialled with growers and it should be widely available commercially within a year.

Dr Wilson says it had been assumed that vigorous fern growth led to asparagus spears of high yield and quality the following season and so crop management had focused on this. However, studies by him and Sarah Sinton, also of Crop & Food Research, had shown that management of the storage root system was just as important. Good management led to higher yields because of higher levels of soluble carbohydrate in the roots during harvest.

A method has been developed for asparagus growers to estimate soluble carbohydrates in the roots simply, cheaply and reliably at any time of the year. After testing the asparagus roots, growers will use the Net to feed their results into AspireNZ at Crop & Food Research.

The programme will ask questions about the crop, its growth stage and the root carbohydrate content.

AspireNZ will then evaluate the grower's responses, comment on the condition of the crop and recommend management options. As well as assisting decision-making in the current season, the programme will retain information about the crop for future reference, allowing the grower to build up a long term picture of what was done and its effects. Each grower's information will be secure and only accessible by an individual password.

So far AspireNZ's responses are all based on information from experimental crops. Last season 12 commercial crops were monitored by Ms Sinton in the Waikato, Hawke's Bay, Manawatu and Canterbury. Cultivars used were, in the North Island, Jersey Giant Syn 4 and, in the South Island, UC157. The results are being used to further develop and test the programme and find reasons for yield differences between crops.

Results to date indicate that asparagus yield is very dependent on the plant population and that the concentration of soluble carbohydrate in the roots follows very predictable patterns during the season. Soluble carbohydrate levels were also related consistently to above-ground performance, both spear growth (yield and duration) and fern growth and loss.

The AspireNZ system has received funding from the Technology for Business Growth scheme and the asparagus industry. When completed, it will be jointly owned and operated by the New Zealand Asparagus Council and Crop & Food Research. Income generated will be invested in further asparagus research.

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