Download - New Zealand Society of Soil Science

Scion
We have two new people in our group. Marie Heaphy is a graduate of Waikato University, obtaining
a BSc in Earth Sciences and Resources and Environmental Planning in April 2007. Having completed
her Masters papers at the University of Waikato, she decided to take up full-time employment at Scion
as a technician in Waste Management and hopes to complete her MSc part-time over the next two
years. A former NZ State Registered Nurse, Marie travelled extensively throughout Asia and Europe
and took time out to work as a safari guide in East and Southern Africa. Having witnessed the
degradation of land, due to over-grazing and deforestation in developing countries, Marie chose to
study soil science with a view to contributing to sustainable solutions to these universal problems.
Johnny Regnier is a six-month appointed Sciences, Mathematics and Technology Teacher Fellow. He
is a Biotechnology teacher in Ngaruawahia. Johnny will be investigating vermiculture in New Zealand
as a means of sustainable waste treatment. Hosted by Michael Quintern from Scion, Johnny is
involved in setting up and monitoring research field trials to investigate the efficiency of using
vermicomposting as a means of dealing with biosolids from local waste treatment plants and other
primary industrial and environmental wastes. The opportunity to work alongside scientists will give
Johnny an insight into scientific research to share with his students and colleagues.
Guna Magesan and Hailong Wang have just completed the final report on N leaching from gorse.
They are looking forward to working on more water quality related projects.
HortResearch
Steve Green and Brent Clothier are working on a 2-year contract with the CRC CARE
(Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment) in Australia, through Euan Smith
of the University of South Australia in Adelaide, to model the transport and fate of heavy metals and
DDT in soil-vegetable systems. Steve and Brent spent the first week of April in Adelaide working
with Euan on designing the structure and framework for the decision support tool that will be powered
by SPASMO (Soil Plant Atmosphere System Model).
We farewell Gerd Wessolek from the Technical University Berlin, who returned to Germany. Gerd
worked with Markus Deurer on hydrophobicity of soils. Stéfanie Roulier from the Soil Protection
Group at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, ETH Zurich returned to Switzerland.
Marlies Schijf from the Amsterdam University, Netherlands is currently touring NZ and will return in
May to continue her internship on looking at the effect of soil carbon on hydrophobicity and hydraulic
functioning of soils.
Felix Witing from the University of Dresden, Germany, is continuing his work on wastewater
And phosphorus movement in soils and will be working with us until June.
SLU Activities
Brent Clothier is the Joint Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier’s international journal “Agricultural Water
Management”. Every so often Elsevier holds an all-Editors’ meeting somewhere in Asia for its Asia-
Pacific Editors. This was recently held in Singapore over the weekend of 23-24 February, and some
250 Editors attended for the meeting entitled “Excellence in Science Communication”. These
meetings are very informative for Elsevier relates its perceptions of what is over the horizon in relation
to science publishing, and often Elsevier (dominating the 2000 publishers with their revenue of
$1.5B/yr in a $9B/yr science-publishing business) is actually creating that horizon. Key points to
come out were:
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