It is a busy time at the nursery with lots of action across all aspects of the production process:
Newly planted rootstocks are being fed and watered, and are looking fantastic. Nursery owner Mike Simpson recently said that he thinks the nursery is looking the best it’s ever been, and rates up with the best European and US nurseries (our benchmarks).
In the field nursery, budded fruit trees are being worked on with rootstock growth removed, to allow the varieties to be trained up bamboo canes. This is hard work for the team, being bent over all day for days on end. The hard work is appreciated, as it creates trees with strong and straight trunks.
In the container nursery, topiary plants are being potted up that will be supplied to garden centres next year. Hop cuttings are almost completed for our growing contracts for NZ Hops. Our first batch of citrus trees has been potted up, with the next lot due to be done very shortly once our new greenhouse has been completed. This will add another 1000 square metres to our citrus growing space.
The start of (almost) everything in the nursery is the rootstocks. Our permanent rootstock beds are having the first of several applications of sawdust this Summer. A modified sileage feeder is used to pour the sawdust onto the beds, which is then mounded up with a specially designed tractor-mounted implement. The purpose of the thick layer of sawdust is to encourage more root development, which then in turn produces thicker rootstocks which grow bigger, better trees once planted out in the field nursery. The pine sawdust is delivered to us directly from the Carter Holt Harvey mill just a few kilometres down the road from our main nursery site. We use the by-product from the sawmill on our rootstocks as well as for our sawdust beds where our bare-root trees are stored in Winter prior to being despatched.
Welcome to all new fixed term staff joining us for the Summer season. Also a warm welcome to Greg Cox who joins us as Human Resources Manager – a new position for the company. Greg joins the Waimea team after over twenty years with Talleys Group.