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    Use of New Zealand native browse shrubs on sheep and beef hill country farms : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Animal Science at the School of Agriculture and Environment, Massey University, Palmerston North, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023) Wangui, James Chege
    Sheep and beef cattle farming on hill country through the historic clearing of native vegetation for pasture has caused biodiversity loss and increased the risk of soil erosion. Exotic tree species such as poplar and radiata pine can be used to control erosion, but there is current interest in using native plants on the hill country for indigenous biodiversity restoration in addition to erosion control. However, there is limited information on the forage value, biomass, carbon stock, and potential economic impacts of native plants compared to exotics species. This thesis was aimed to address the lack of information available on native shrubs and their comparison to exotics trees and shrubs. The forage feeding value results revealed that native shrubs had consistent nutritional composition across seasons, higher metabolizable energy, and lower crude protein than the exotic shrub Salix schwerinii (Kinuyanagi). Findings on in vitro fermentation characteristics showed that native shrubs were highly digestible, yielded higher volatile fatty acids, microbial proteins, and greenhouse gases than S. schwerinii. Estimation of biomass revealed that the native shrubs were similar in aboveground biomass accumulation, but differed in allocation to foliage, branch, and stem. Melicytus ramiflorus (Mahoe) had lower foliage biomass while Coprosma robusta (Karamū) had lower branch biomass, among the evaluated shrubs. Estimated carbon stock accumulation was higher for Pittosporum crassifolium (Karo) due to a greater woodier portion (branch and stem) than M. ramiflorus and C. robusta but lower than exotic trees. The data from the native shrub studies was used in the bioeconomic model and showed that planting native shrubs or radiata pine on steep slopes equal to 10% of the farm area would reduce farm feed supply. This reduction would result in a decrease in sheep flock size and sheep flock net cashflow, particularly with higher planting rates and with of radiata pine. While radiata pine had a surplus overall farm net cashflow, native shrubs had negative cashflow due to high seedling costs and low carbon income, making their use on the farm currently unprofitable at the modelled prices. The study's findings suggest that replacing exotic trees with native shrubs can provide high-quality summer browse for livestock. The decision to plant native shrubs on steep hill country slopes would depend on the farmer’s financial situation and interest in biodiversity conservation and profits. However, reducing planting costs and increasing the carbon price would be necessary to make investing in native shrubs profitable and more attractive to farmers.
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    Field spectroradiometer data : acquisition, organisation, processing and analysis on the example of New Zealand native plants : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Earth Science at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2006) Hueni, Andreas
    The purpose of this research was to investigate the acquisition, storage, processing and analysis of hyperspectral data for vegetation applications on the example of New Zealand native plants. Data covering the spectral range 350nm-2500nm were collected with a portable spectroradiometer. Hyperspectral data collection results in large datasets that need pre-processing before any analysis can be carried out. A review of the techniques used since the advent of hyperspectral field data showed the following general procedures were followed: 1. Removal of noisy or uncalibrated bands 2. Data smoothing 3. Reduction of dimensionality 4. Transformation into feature space 5. Analysis techniques Steps 1 to 4 which are concerned with the pre-processing of data were found to be repetitive procedures and thus had a high potential for automation. The pre-processing had a major impact on the results gained in the analysis stage. Finding the ideal pre-processing parameters involved repeated processing of the data. Hyperspectral field data should be stored in a structured way. The utilization of a relational database seemed a logical approach. A hierarchical data structure that reflected the real world and the setup of sampling campaigns was designed. This structure was transformed into a logical data model. Furthermore the database also held information needed for pre-processing and statistical analysis. This enabled the calculation of separability measurements such as the JM (Jeffries Matusila) distance or the application of discriminant analysis. Software was written to provide a graphical user interface to the database and implement pre-processing and analysis functionality. The acquisition, processing and analysis steps were applied to New Zealand native vegetation. A high degree of separability between species was achieved and using independent data a classification accuracy of 87.87% was reached. This outcome required smoothing, Hyperion synthesizing and principal components transformation to be applied to the data prior to the classification which used a generalized squared distance discriminant function. The mixed signature problem was addressed in experiments under controlled laboratory conditions and revealed that certain combinations of plants could not be unmixed successfully while mixtures of vegetation and artificial materials resulted in very good abundance estimations. The combination of a relational database with associated software for data processing was found to be highly efficient when dealing with hyperspectral field data.
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    Seed dormancy and germination of a panel of New Zealand plant species : Carex trifida, Corposma robusta, Cyperus ustulatus, Hebe stricta, Muehlenbeckia australis, Myrsine australis, Phormium tenax and Sophora prostrata : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2004) Mackay, Allison
    Literature was reviewed on the germination and possible uses for revegetation of the New Zealand indigenous species selected. Seeds of Carex trifida, Coprosma robusta, Cyperus ustulatus, Hebe stricta, Leptospermum scoparium, Muehlenbeckia australis, Myrsine australis, Phormium tenax, Phormium 'Yellow Wave' and Sophora prostrata were assessed for germination rates, percentage germination, dormancy and the effects that temperature has on germination. Seeds of Carex, Cyperus and Myrsine showed no germination in light or dark at 20°C. In contrast, 12 weeks of low temperature stratification resulted in a high percentage of seed germinating for Carex and Cyperus. There was no germination of Myrsine despite high viability in the initial germination experiment and the stratification experiment. Removal of the endocarp and a period of stratification increased germination percentage of Myrsine to 91%. Germination was low for Muehlenbeckia in the light at 20°C, but 4 weeks of low temperature stratification increased germination rate. After 2 years, 80% of Coprosma seeds germinated but germination rate increased after subjecting the seed to 8 weeks or more of stratification. No seeds of Coprosma or Muehlenbeckia germinated in the dark. Rapid germination of Hebe seeds was obtained, with 100% of the seed germinating in the light while only 7% germinated in the dark. Leptospermum had rapid germination, with 100% germinating in the light, while only 3% germinated in the dark. A low percentage of Phormium seed germinated in both the light and dark in the first month and no further germination was observed. In contrast, 8 weeks or more of low temperature stratification resulted in almost complete germination. There was rapid germination of Sophora seeds with 100% of the seed germinating in the light and dark. Carex seed had a limited temperature range at which it germinated (22°C to 26°C), while Cyperus had a wider range (18°C to 32°C) but did not germinate at low temperatures (6°C to 14°C). The optimum germination range for Cyperus was 24°C to 30°C. Hebe did not germinate at high temperatures (30°C to 32°C) but successfully germinated at all other temperatures with the optimum germination range being 6°C to 24°C. Leptospermum did not germinate at 6°C but had maximum germination at most other temperatures. Muehlenbeckia and Phormium germinated at all temperatures tested (6°C to 32°C) with the most seed germinating at 20°C for Muehlenbeckia and between 14°C to 22°C for Phormium. Sophora did not germinate at the low temperatures (6°C to 10°C). The germination rate increased with temperature for Cyperus, Hebe, Leptospermum, Muehlenbeckia, and Phormium. Generally, for Carex and Sophora as temperature increased germination rate slowed. It appeared that light is required for Hebe and Leptospermum to germinate. Sophora required scarification but not light. Coprosma and Muehlenbeckia required light and a period of chilling to increase the rate of germination. A small percentage of the Phormium population is not dormant but a period of chilling increased the germination percentage for that portion of the population that is dormant. Carex and Cyperus required a period of chilling in order to break dormancy. Myrsine required removal of endocarp and a period of chilling to germinate. A list of cleaning descriptions and the equipment that was used for each species studied is reported. Preliminary results of a hydroseeding trail using the species studied were also reported.
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    The chloroplast genome of Arthropodium bifurcatum : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biological Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2010) Cox, Simon James Lethbridge
    This thesis describes the application of high throughput (Illumina) short read sequencing and analyses to obtain the chloroplast genome sequence of Arthropodium bifurcatum and chloroplast genome markers for future testing of hypotheses that explain geographic distributions of Rengarenga – the name Maori give to species of Arthropodium in New Zealand. It has been proposed that A.cirratum was translocated from regions in the north of New Zealand to zones further south due to its value as a food crop. In order to develop markers to test this hypothesis, the chloroplast genome of the closely related A.bifurcatum was sequenced and annotated. A range of tools were used to handle the large quantities of data produced by the Illumina GAIIx. Programs included the de novo assembler Velvet, alignment tools BWA and Bowtie, the viewer Tablet and the quality control program SolexaQA. The A.bifurcatum genome was then used as a reference to align long range PCR products amplified from multiple accessions of A.cirratum and A.bifurcatum sampled from a range of geographic locations. From this alignment variable SNP markers were identified. Putative gene annotations for A.bifurcatum were compared to published chloroplast genomes from the Magnoliids and Monocot clades. Interesting similarities and differences have been detected and these have been discussed.