New Zealand Treecrops Association

News - Tree Crops award for Gail’s huge effort

By Lesley Board

Gail Newcomb of Katikati thought you had to be a bloke to win the coveted Dr Don McKenzie award for outstanding contribution to the New Zealand Tree Crops Association.

She wasn’t far wrong, because Gail is the first woman ever to take the unique trophy home from the association’s national conference. It’s a fossilised walnut, around 8-9 million years old, from a ‘brown’ coalfield in former Western Germany and was presented to the late Dr Don McKenzie when he attended a 1983 conference there.
“There were two other male nominees so I was just blown away to be the one chosen,” Gail said.

Her nomination came from the Nelson, Waikato and Franklin branches and was endorsed by her home branch of Bay of Plenty. They recognised her huge effort as Technical Editor in researching and editing the 77 page book ‘Tree Crops in New Zealand’ which contains general information on tree cropping and notes on more than 65 varieties. She gave the association full rights to her book which has proved a valuable fundraiser and also updated the useful fact sheets.

With another tree crops enthusiast, Les Gruebner, Gail also set up a Bay of Plenty website for the association and later a national website with Les as webmaster.

“Government has pulled the plug on a lot of the research formerly done by DSIR and these days much of it is left to the hobbyists. There is so much information and experience out there but it’s very scattered. We wanted to prevent valuable research being lost and get it into a form suitable for publication.”

It was a task that few people would have attempted, but Gail confesses to being an enthusiastic hoarder of information since her school days. She found one of the best methods was to attend field days armed with a tape recorder. Now her ‘Tree Crops In New Zealand’ is a ready seller, carrying basic information on growing everything from bee trees and bananas to pistachios, raisin trees and truffles.

The Fact Sheets, like the book, are available to the public as well as members. The sheet on the Andean Walnut, for instance, covers five A5 pages and deals with everything from cultivation, pests and diseases, to medicinal use and even a recipe for Sweet Pickled Walnuts. The fact sheets cost $2 a page while the books are $30 with a 50 per cent discount for NZTCA members.

The Good Life

Gail and Les were friends who wanted to embrace the good life and become as self sufficient as possible. They say their involvement with the Tree Crops Association has given them a great deal of pleasure and they've made many interesting contacts, but it has also cut down on the time they've been able to spend developing their own property.

They bought an 8 acre block of “very unfriendly land” in Work Road in 1993 and confess they didn’t have a clue about growing things at that stage.

“It was then we joined the Tree Crops Association and couldn't have managed without their help. Now we have a huge variety of trees, all planted on a trial basis, and Les calls it our human grazing block. There is one of every citrus variety for instance and we have just planted out 20 different figs.”

Then there are the nut trees, heritage trees, rare fruits and even the lost crops of the Incas. Gail has always been fascinated by the Inca civilisation and found to her surprise that they only had to add some coffee bushes to duplicate most of their crops.

They have just added the Quito or Coconut palm native to the Andes, an attractive Mountain Pineapple from Ecuador and Arrowroot (Canna edulis) which was probably one of the first plants to have been domesticated in the Andean region.

Ahead of our time

“We were a bit ahead of our time in wanting to install a composting loo (that almost sent the council into hysterics) and we weren’t allowed to feed our surplus solar power back into the system as they do in some other areas. But we do run our lights and computer on solar power, cook on a wood burner and built our board and baton house from pines milled on the property.”

Like many other members of the association they don’t rely solely on trees for their income Les’s electronics keep the home fires burning. But they do have a real desire to record all research done and share the information on tree crops as widely as possible.

They are against monoculture and the “money-driven” emphasis on just one preferred cultivar. “We like to take a much broader view, believing that people’s tastes change over the years. Members of the association learn so much from each other and we enjoy doing our bit to raise awareness of alternative and interesting tree crops.”

The new national webpage which has links to other branches and related sites is at http://www.treecrops.org.nz

Dr Don remembered for achievements

Dr Don, as he was known to many, was a founding member of the New Zealand Tree Crops Association.

As a DSIR scientist he twice defied instructions to pull out his “GS” cross apple trees and the new apple varieties of Southern Snap and Pacific Rose were the result of an intensive breeding programme which he began in the 1960’s. Both varieties result from crosses of Gala and Splendour.

Tragically, Dr Don McKenzie was killed in a 1987 road accident, but by then he had played a key role in establishing early scientific relationships with China. This paved the way for new kiwifruit plant material to be introduced to the New Zealand breeding programme.

On his initiative, a sister city link was established between Hastings and Guilin in China and the Dr Don McKenzie Memorial Fund honours his memory by funding projects to alleviate poverty in Guangxi.

Coast & Country - May 2002 - Issue No 21

Bay of Plenty & Waikato farm, orchard and rural life news, Page 51

http://www.treecrops.org.nz/news/news02q2/awardmore.html
Launched 29/May/2002 - Updated: 2007 August 11