When: From 3pm, Wednesday 11 December.
Where: Lake Terrace Cherries, 90 Smiths Way, Cromwell. There will be signs indicating where to go.
- This field walk is an opportunity to view Ben van Gool’s Upright Shooting Offshoot (UFO) cherry block, and discuss the upcoming season and current orchard activities. We will also look at Ben’s trial on four-year-old whole tree upright renewal.
- Josh McCulloch from Autonabit will be demonstrating his automated, self-navigating bird scaring equipment designed to fit down narrow rows, reduce on-orchard costs and bird damage to crop.
- The Plant & Food Research team will also provide an update on the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund programme titled ‘Future Orchard Planting Systems (FOPS)’.
- This programme is investigating the following areas in experimental and commercial planar cordon orchards of apple, pear and summerfruit:
- Potential barriers in adopting new growing systems
- Tree performance, management techniques and metrics for sustainable yield & fruit quality
- Orchard water use and nitrate leaching (apple only)
- Economic modelling and evaluation of planar cordon orchard performance versus other emerging and conventional systems.
Refreshments will be provided afterwards to enable informal discussions
All welcome!
For enquiries, please contact Tiff.DaSilva@plantandfood.co.nz.