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"An encouraging number of people assembled in the sunshine near Awakeri to hear how Andrew and Daphne had turned their property from a windswept paddock without a single tree, and no worms, to hog heaven. They bought the place to rear calves as a secondary income, while establishing a pleasant environment to raise a family. They still rear calves and produce a number of pigs under the chestnut trees."
"Andrew, being a science teacher, thinks things through and does it his way, with impressive results. We saw a block of feijoas; seedlings from large fruited parents, planted 4 by 5 metres apart. They expect at least 4 tons per acre from this block, which will go for juice. Mostly, we saw chestnuts of various ages and at different stages of harvest. The whole place is fenced and laid out for calf rearing, so the production of grass between the trees has been an important feature. Sometimes he takes off a hay crop and sometimes grazes. The latter has its risks, as the animals have stripped bark off trees a couple of times. One block had to be regrafted after such an attack. As the trees get older the risks reduce, but we saw one tree recently damaged, so Andrew and Daphne can never relax their watch."
"They got into chestnuts when they planted a few of Gordon Atkinson's seedlings, then learnt to graft at a Tree Crops grafting workshop, and grafted their own trees; varieties 1002, 1005 and 1015 in equal proportions. At one end of the oldest block there is still a row of seedlings, and Andrew reckons the grafted ones closest to them always set more consistently and drop a little earlier than the rest of the block. Fortunately he does not seem to suffer from multi-embryony in his 1005 as a result of the seedling pollination. (John Tailby said he had bad splitting in his chestnuts until he cut out his seedlings.) The trees were planted at 8 metre spacings, which is looking just about right. All the trees were pruned up to 1.5 metres, and there was a prolonged discussion about pruning higher for timber."
"Andrew decided right from the start he was not going to spend all his weekends on a ride-on, so they hire a tractor and mower when they need it. This happens once a year just before chestnut harvest. They mow the whole place for $150."
"The final stage of harvest is to let the pigs in to clean up. He runs a Duroc boar and Wessex saddleback/Duroc cross sows. They are healthy, productive, and as non-aggressive a breed as a pig can be, so are easy to manage. He has no damage to the trees, except for one sow that took to digging up and stripping bark off the roots. Getting rid of that animal fixed the problem. The pigs fertilise the orchard by processing their imported food scraps, meal, and milk. They also play a big part in pest control by removing old nuts and grass grubs, and they mow without the compaction from heavy machinery. Can you imagine a chestnut forest in the natural state without pigs?"
"Unfortunately we ran out of time and were not able to see the Collicott's set up for making a chestnut spread, which they sell at local supermarkets. Never mind, we had all learnt heaps by then. So thank you Andrew and Daphne for an interesting day."
"Quoted text from Te Tipuranga, June 2002 (Issue 3)"
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Created: Wednesday, 19 June 2002 - Updated: 2007 August 10