Guy Goldsbrough May 1985
Since my last report, time, for me, has passed very quickly - perhaps because I was away overseas for three months.
My trip overseas was mainly for the purpose of looking at nut growing in Germany,Holland,Switzerland and France.
It came through ‘load and clear’ that we must all (branches,areas and individuals) carry out trials with known varieties and local selections of walnuts,hazelnuts and chestnuts.
Action Groups have already been set up for walnuts and hazelnuts, and, others are in the pipeline.
Official trial areas are being set up by the Canterbury Branch at Lincoln College. These trials should be duplicated throughout New Zealand with the addition of the best local selections in each area.
A number of commercial plantings of walnuts and hazels have already been made and although we believe the selections planted are some of the best in NZ the precocity,yield and pollination of each has not yet been determined.
I hope everyone has read the Hazelnut Task Force report in the February issue of Growing Today.
Research is going to cost a lot of money and I hope sufficient will come in on a voluntary basis. The alternatives are a levy, or increased subscriptions.
After the Nelson Conference I travelled North to Hamilton and assisted at the Mystery Creek Field Days. The NZTCA had a very central position and put up a very worthwhile exhibit which attracted a lot of attention. By the number of chocolate bars sold by Jeremy King it was estimated 4,000 people visited the tent. My observation of the exhibit shows we need plenty of back numbers of Journals, well mounted display material, and individual crop publications. Many S.1. visitors were there even from Methven.
At the invitation of the NI Vice President,Mr Owen Long, I went to Auckland. I was shown,and amazed at seeing 100 year old Pecan trees. Beautiful trees some 80 to 100 feet tall. I gave two talks, one to the East Bays Horticultural Society and the other to the South Auckland Branch at Pukekohoe to give them some insight to Tree Cropping in the South Island.
I feel exchange visits of not only Executive and Management,but of ordinary members is a very worthwhile exercise. I would like to extend a welcome to any member to visit me at Northfield. Please ring first as I may be away collecting scionwood.
After arriving home from this trip north I was pretty busy getting ready for overseas,collecting scionwood,grafting and arranging for someone to look after the place whilst I would be away. First stop was Melbourne and on to Tasmania to see Bill Mollison at Stanley. I was impressed by the work he has done in hard conditions. He has collected a most interesting library and is running a successful seed distributing business.
Back to Melbourne for the ACOTANC Conference, a report of which has appeared in Growing Today. Having talked with Tree Crop people in Tasmania and. Australia I should say we are progressing very favourably in research but more planting needs to be done.
From Melbourne I went to Germany (Geisenheim) to see the Mother trees of Walnuts imported to NZ 12 years ago. These Mother trees are now 35 years old and I was able to obtain some first hand information from Dr Jacob who is the scientist in charge of walnut propagation and management. The time was the end of August (our February) and they were patch budding on to Juglans regia, nigra and sieboldiana. They also layer walnuts to get them on their own roots.
Eight Geisenheim varieties have now been assessed by the SI WAG and other information I received has been passed to them.
As I mentioned at the beginning variety and selection trials must be carried out and if we want clean nuts spraying with Bordeaux, Kocide,or other copper based spray material is a must. Times which seem most important overseas are bud burst,opening of female flowers,pollen flying and 4 or 5 more times,but I behave we must do our own research to find not only the correct times for our conditions but also the strength of spray.
Every Nursery,Orchard or Research Station had the best cultivars from other countries under test.
In Germany I also attended the IFOAM Conference the theme of which was ‘The place of Organic Farming in this world of diminishing resources’ attended by some 300 persons from all countries (4 from NZ.)
Some people may think Conferences are a waste of time, the papers may be uninteresting or too technical but I think the contacts one makes are very worthwhile and important.
My impressions of Germany,also Switzerland and Holland were cleanliness, attractiveness (window boxes, street containers ,tree lined streets), small paddocks and meadows,many woodlots, very few wire fences, must be a great saving for farmers— robinias and tilea much in evidence.
My trip to the UK. was mainly to see relatives and friends but I must say I was favourably impressed by the still unspoilt Britain. Some lovely farming land,old trees preserved 300 to 4OO years. The bad things were dirty streets in towns,smog,burning of stubble and removal of hedges.
From UK I went to Switzerland to learn more about chestnut growing. Ernie New has come back with more information than I can give you here and I’ll urge all of you to road of his travels and hope you heard his slide talk. The message is definitely plant more chestnuts.
In France at Bordeaux the INRA Research Station is working on walnuts,hazels and chestnuts. We have such an advantage in this country as far as chestnuts are concerned as we do not have to search for disease resistant trees. We could plant thousands of hectares right away for nuts and timber.
In Switzerland T.Cut or Shield budding is practised. In France they do patch budding and grafting. Stooling is done to get trees on their own roots.
I was kindly taken by M.Chapa to Jean Aversengs nursery and orchard. The operation is so large it is out of our range. M.Averseng was most welcoming and showed me his nursery and we discussed merits of various varieties. He is only too happy to have practical people to work and learn at the Nursery but he cannot pay wages. He would expect such persons to work the normal hours and find their own accommodation.
At INRA I saw work being done on tissue culture and fungi of chestnuts to assist a tree to remain healthy and resist root-rot (phytophthora).
And so back to UK and then on the way home through the States calling on Professor Maxine Thompson to see the work she is doing on hazels. Last year assessing 6,000 nuts and planting out another 7,000 seedlings this year. The greatest news may be a non-suckering Corylus avellana which would be a good stock on which to graft. Be wary of Oregon Barcelona as some orchards had a very high incidence of ‘brown stain’ last year. It was Hallo’een eve and it was interesting to find all the shops,business people, and the whole town entering into the spirit and dressing up,masks and all.
Then on to Davis University where I saw tissue culture of walnuts. I have sent the latest report to FRI Rotorua and to DSIR Palmerston North. I understand a Nurseryman in California has developed a technique for tissue culture of walnuts and has 2000 planted in the field, I cannot vouch for this as I did not see them,
I Visited one farm with Miles Nerwin where they had just harvested 175 tons of walnuts mainly Hartly and Franquette untouched by hand. Unlike Aversengs where dehusking, cleaning and sorting are done in the open, Craig has a big shed with all the equipment inside. He even has all his spraying done by he1icopter.
It is very pleasant going for a walk in this area as the road a are lined with walnuts and so one never needs get hungry.
On arrival home mid-November the Ashburton,Farm Forestry Assn. had a Field—day here at Northfield. I was able to extol the virtue of chestnuts for timber and fruit and also the short term advantage over Pinus radiata of Coppicing.
The weekend of Feb,22nd, saw 150 keen Tree Croppers at Westport. This was an extremely well organised and interesting Seminar which covered most aspects of hardy tree crops. Perhaps we should have had longer to discuss fully the 'Aims and Objects’ and the ‘Organisation’ of the Association.
As you can see I have had a full year and my only regret is that whilst all this was going on the Southland Branch was going into recess, I did not know till too late, I would say to any other Branch which finds itself unable to carry on that they should inform Management as they may have some magic formula to assist and strengthen a weak branch, After all we are members of the NZ Tree Crops Association and not just members of a branch — we are one body and not 20 separate units.
I have just attended part of the Permaculture Course given by Bill Mollison, and would advise any Tree Cropper to attend a course if possible, as so many of his ideas can be applied to large scale farming or the home gardener.
G.H. Goldsbrough (S.I.V.P.)