New Zealand Treecrops Association

North Island VP's Report - 2003 AGM

North Island Vice President's Report 2002

Presented to the Otago National Conference, Easter 2003

Organizing the national conference in Central Districts certainly galvanised our branch, and we took the clear messages of burnout, and the need to have a good program for the ensuing year in mind so as not to share the post conference collapse you all warned us about. I took the message to management committee that the organising branch needs all the guidance and encouragement they can get from us. I must say that email communications have kept those communications both instant and friendly. I hope each year's organising committee find national as useful as we did at Central Districts. I congratulate the branch on a its level of professional expertise and friendly hospitality. I took a while to come back to earth myself.

Some issues form last year occupied my attention urgently. I spent time with the webmaster Les Gruebner and if I do not claim any of the remarkable expertise which he has brought to this project I endorse and congratulate him on a revolution in knowledge sharing at the branch and individual member level. When you look up the branch activities web page it is possible to match all the suggestions and guidelines in the strategic plan to all the activities you are all organizing throughout the country. I thank Les on your behalf. Now just go out and use the web. Get onto the chatroom and make your suggestions to all those queries. It is amazing how inhibited we still are with the new technology. In every branch there are enough computer literate members to get the information flowing to the newsletters. The new topographic map CD-ROM we have been using to get a map for each fieldday is simply brilliant. Walter prints out a closeup of each treecropper I propose to visit when I travel and I haven't got lost once. If your branch has not bought it yet be advised it is a beaut.

Some of you want to censor and limit the website comments to "Expert" opinion. Who are the experts? The folk out there who are growing the crops have valid observations from their individual orchards. We need to discuss and compare openly. We are still discovering the parameters of what will grow and flourish and where and how. How are you going with your crops after this unusual season? We had 900 empty apricot trees in Wanganui and all the different plum trees were empty too. The bees sulked in the hive for eight weeks before they would come out and pollinate the pears and apples, then they got very busy indeed and gave a bumper crop of honey in the dry season that followed that ghastly spring. I don't want to limit the chat room to EXPERTS; I want you to share your experiences. I once asked the Gisborne members "How do you pick up after a catastrophic season?" The answer is you go out and summer prune all those apricot trees for next season. I can't complain we have not had enough fine weather. Now we are in the middle of a drought? How do you plan to survive a drought? To use the chat room you just need your subscription number...

We have had a good series of our magazine. I want to thank the editor, and all who contributed so much good technical items. I haven't communicated much with our new technical editor and stationery officer. How easy it is to take the good workers for granted. Gail Newcomb has been kindness itself in orienting me to the wealth of material and oral history that needs collating for the history of our organization. We started with ideas, now the country is pepperpotted with examples of treecropper philosophy. I had a moment of fame on National radio followed by an avalanche of emails and letters from people wanting to see our trees. I was interested to learn that I have all the nitrogen fixing trees but I have not planted them in guilds. With all these visitors and a bit of ill health all the organics visitors at conference who found our place too tidy will rejoice that there are a lot more "herbal leys" at Nuts'n May.

You can thank the Northern Region for all the monitoring of The Fruit Driller and the work they have done to give us a method of combatting this pest. You can't thank the government biosecurity people. Each time I study their technicolour bulletins there is no mention of an initiative on guava moth. The industry groups have not taken action, everyone is waiting for someone else to take responsiblity. NZTCA have been actively encouraging people to grow new crops for 27 years. Now there is a pest that can damage every fruit and nut crop we grow. It would be irresponsible to do nothing and let all our members and all the home gardeners in New Zealand suffer this appalling loss of crop. Most of my travelling this year has been to the north to encourage our members to carry on the fight. They have set up a schools program to help monitor the spread of guava moth. We have helped develop the pheromone bait which will enable us to eliminate the pest by a process of mating disruption and direct poisoning of the males attracted by the synthetic pheromones. All power to the branch which has taken on the task. Thanks to Central Districts, and all those branches and individual members responding to the Northern Region appeal for research funds enabling every other fruitgrower in warm areas to prevent the spread of the fruit driller. I look forward to hearing more from Dr Gordon Lees at conference.

I have had the opportunity to push this barrow with all the north island branches this year. Gisborne and Hawkes Bay I am sorry not to have been up and over to you in person but my work bringing Guava moth to the attention of government agencies and Hort Research has you right in my minds eye. The insect can survive temperatures of minus 4 degrees. You and Wanganui, Kapiti and Nelson are dangerously in the target zone of this pest. I have made representations to the Biosecurity Policy planning document on your behalf. Ray and I brought to the attention of Paul McGilvary the new head of Hort Research in New Zealand that a prompt response, early analysis of the insect giving appropriate methods of control would save millions of dollars worth of damage both to our plants and to the overseas markets we have developed. I believe the intelligent observations of our members should meet a sympathetic and swift response on the part of our national biosecurity agency.

Another important initiative has been the appointment of David Klinac of Waikato as a research director, and Waikato branch has made a generous donation towards research also. David brings so much expertise and experience to our nut crops and nashi. It gives me confidence that he is on the spot as a frightening outbreak of plum virus has occurred right in his area. I await news of how to monitor and prevent the spread this terrible disease to all other stone fruit. We don't need to panic but we have every reason to be grateful that someone with knowledge is keeping an eye out there.

BoP branch have welcomed me to their area several times. The topic is usually looking to Conference 2004 and planning is well under way. I welcome the opportunity to be of use to the branch well in advance of the event, as I am sure the south island vice president Jim Jolly has liased with the Otago committee to help make a better conference. I have also opened a dialogue with the Westland branch in anticipation of conference 2005. I hope it makes a big issue of specialty timbers .
I have followed up my interest in specialty timbers in Taranaki; and the Waikato you have showed me walnuts; and plums in Wairarapa and Wellington-Horowhenua... and I talked chestnuts and marketing in BoP. In Katikati I had the opportunity to see pecans both in the drowning winter and the flourishing summer. What an extraordinary range this crop will grow in. In Franklin I saw just about every crop we grow on an organics block. Thankyou to all the members who offered me hospitality at your fielddays and in your homes. Thankyou to all the newsletter editors who have done a great job. It is remarkable how much the newsletters have improved in both the presentation and the amount of interbranch visiting and knowledge sharing. It seems to be general all over the country, but in my own branch the programs have doubled with the amount of interbranch activity. Of course we are at a very interesting stage with crops coming into bearing and commercial development coming on apace. I look forward to the crop sharing competitions at conference.

Yours in Treecrops

Diana Loader

http://www.treecrops.org.nz/bydate/nat2003/nivprep03.html
Created: Friday, 13 June 2003 - Updated: 2007 August 11