HortNZ has developed a checklist to help growers make decisions about whether they need to apply for resource consent to authorise activities they have undertaken to recover from the cyclone.
A copy of this report can be accessed via the below link
Hopefully by now all your fruit is in a bin and you can enjoy a bit of time off to recharge and decompress from the season.
Our classes are now underway, and you will notice changes in the timetable as we have tried to structure courses in a way that they can be more easily completed by our students, with one course concluding before another begins. We also are covering more courses over Autumn and Winter so the majority of assessment is underway before spraying starts. We have updated timetables to be circulated, and if you have any questions about this please contact us direct. There will be some more room changes as we have just been informed EIT will be closed until the end of the year.
The teaching starts again for the level 5 fruit production with Horticultural Business skills on a Wednesday. Delivery has been moved to the Hastings campus. Anyone wishing to sign up still has time. Contact Cthorman@eit.ac.nz
The Post Harvest students are working to complete their assessments. These all have to be in by the end of June.
The 2023 Post Harvest program will be starting again in July, anyone interested in discussing the program please contact Chris Thorman at cthorman@eit.ac.nz
Noho ora mai
Clare
Future young leaders of the industry have just under two weeks to apply for the Hawke’s Bay Young Fruit Grower of the Year Competition, to be held on the 10th and 11th August.
The event, held over two days, provides motivated and talented young horticulturists the opportunity to highlight and hone their technical and leadership skills. The day competition will be held on the 10th August, Ranui Field, Lindisfarne College and the inaugural Leadership Panel will take place on 11th August, Toitoi Arts & Events Centre, prior to the evening Awards Dinner.
To download the application form visit www.hbfa.co.nz or visit HBFA’s Facebook page for more information. Entries close 5pm, 1 June.
A guidance document has been drafted to to help growers appropriately manage anything that they accidentally discover as they are removing silt from their land. The flooding dramatically altered the landscape, and amongst other things, washed bones out of urupa/burial sites, and unearthed other previously buried taonga/treasures. This means you could come across something unexpected as you are removing silt.
Please follow the below link to access the full document.
Horticulture New Zealand has partnered with EAM Environmental Consultants to develop silt removal guidelines to help property owners safely remove silt from their land.
This document has been prepared in accordance with the Ministry for Environment Contaminated Land Management Guidelines, No. 5 (CLMG No. 5), Site Investigation and Analysis of Soils (MfE, 2021) and the Resource Management (National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil to Protect Human Health) Regulations 2011 (NESCS).
Please find the following link to access the full document
Guidelines for the removal of silt from orchards market gardens and agricultural land. CD eds
Immediately following Cyclone Gabrielle, the AgFirst Tile Drains project team carried out a risk assessment across all our tile drains monitoring sites to determine any site-specific impacts to our equipment and sampling ability, as well as the new Health and Safety risks.
We have experienced a range of different cyclone impacts across all our monitoring locations. We took no samples during the month of February due to site accessibility and various Health and Safety risks (silt, flood water, bank erosion, collapsed canopies etc). However, after working with site participants and managing these risks, from the 8th March our fortnightly grab sampling schedule continued across all but one site.
With Massey University’s help, we have been carrying out repairs and maintenance on all our proportional sampling and flow metering equipment. This has included flushing them all of silt, realigning them in the drains and some rewiring of flow meter controllers where they were inundated with floodwater. Most of our equipment is now back up and running with proportional samples now being taken, but there are still further repairs required at the sites in Pakowhai and Fernhill where the impacts were greater.
While servicing our equipment, we also downloaded the stored data from our flow meters. We were able to capture some tile drain flow data from the cyclone event across 6 of our 8 flow metered sites, and this is currently being analysed.
The team has undergone a lot of “passive project extension” with many discussions around the importance of drainage, and the impacts of high intensity, high flow events.
If you have any specific questions or analysis angles which you think may be worthwhile to look into and include in our project evaluation following Cyclone Gabrielle, please let us know.
Autumn is almost over and thankfully it’s been gentle on the region so far. It gave us a reasonably dry March, then average April rainfall and a reasonably sedate start to May. It was the western ranges that saw close to average rainfall in April, while the Heretaunga Plains had about half its average and other eastern areas, such as Wairoa and the south coast, were nearer to 75%.
With April’s rain falling mainly in the ranges and into the headwaters of our rivers, flows were higher than usual for the month. Soil moisture didn’t dive downwards despite the drier weather and stayed above median levels for the time of year and still at field capacity in many areas. April’s air temperatures were warm for mid-autumn, especially the overnight temperatures, which were more than 2°C above average. No surprises then that soil temperatures were warmer than usual in April, but at the time of writing were close to the mid-May average of about 11°C.
It seems likely that El Niño conditions will develop during winter and remain with us for summer. We’re also likely to see a positive Indian Ocean Dipole by the end of winter too. Together they suggest drier than usual weather as we move further into the year. The prospect for winter appears to be one of higher than normal sea level pressure to the northwest of the country and lower to the east, signalling a move towards a westerly wind flow. Winter temperatures are expected to be near or above normal and rainfall near or below normal. Below normal rain could well become the mantra to replace the past year’s “above normal” running theme.
.
Percentage of Normal Rainfall
Dr Kathleen Kozyniak
Principal Scientist Air
Hawke’s Bay Regional Council
Hawke’s Bay Fruitgrower’s Association has partnered with The Evergreen Foundation to support costs associated with registration, travel, accommodation, and expenses for conference week (or part thereof). We are keen to ensure that cost of attendance is not a barrier to growers impacted by the Cyclone.
The special early-bird registration rates end on Friday 26 May, so get in quick to save!
This is open to all fruit growers suffering financial hardship due to Cyclone Gabrielle (regardless of product group).
To learn more about this funding please email info@applesandpears.nz for full details.
Please find the below link to access the latest update from Hastings District Council.
Cyclone-Gabrielle-update-as-at-15-May-2023
HBFA has engaged Wanda Douglas to provide free and confidential psychological support to our members and their families. Wanda is a Registered Psychologist with the NZ Psychologists’ Board. She is based locally in Taradale.
HBFA will fund the first three one-hour sessions for any member of the association and/or their direct family members. Wanda can be contacted via her mobile on 021 1700 506
We also remind members and the wider rural community that they can also contact the Rural Support Trust on 0800 787 254 if they have any wellbeing concerns.
