When you can find wild kiwi, weka and long-tailed bats in your kiwifruit orchard at night, you know your efforts to look after the orchard’s wider landscape are working. That’s the situation that Alan Dobbie and his team at Wiroa Horticulture, near Kerikeri, have created on the 137 ha property owned by Craigmore Investments. Formerly a dairy farm, the transformation to kiwifruit started in 2018. Now 82 ha are planted in gold and red kiwifruit, and 34 ha of predominantly slopes and gullies is planted in natives and protected bush blocks.
A pest trapping programme commenced seven years ago. With 100 traps, so far over 1,600 rats, stoats and ferrets have been killed, and the kiwi, weka and long-tailed bat populations now visibly growing. Last year, the team established a new record harvest for property with 450,000 trays of gold kiwifruit while also picking their first commercial crop of red. Alan, as Business Manager for Craigmore Sustainables, looks after Wiroa and the company’s other horticultural ventures in Bay of Plenty.
Alan says during the early years, Plant & Food Research (now Bioeconomy Science Institute) conducted a study on the environmental impact of changing from dairy to kiwifruit. “We wanted to assess the impact of native pollinators in the kiwifruit and whether native plantings around the orchard supported beneficial insects, which we now know they do.” Alan says their aim is to have a lighter footprint wherever possible.
Another example is the use of natural budbreakers where they’ve been trialling Syncron which induces phytohormonal activity when applied with a suitable nitrogen source. “We have about 3 ha where we use Syncron, sensitive areas near natives and neighbours. We’ve not nailed the application timing 100 percent yet to be able to use only one application.
Currently we get good budbreak with two applications, but we’re aiming to do only one at the optimum time. The product is organically registered in EU. Something that could work for New Zealand, especially with organic Hayward orchards.” This year, Wiroa was named the Balance Farm Environment Awards Regional Supreme Winner. The judges’ comments included:
» A beautifully integrated orchard landscape where commercial production sits seamlessly alongside extensive native plantings and restored bush remnants.
» Strong ecological corridors linking habitats across property supporting thriving populations of kiwi, bittern, bats and other native species.
» Highly advanced water management systems including precision irrigation, fertigation and soil moisture monitoring woven into everyday practice.
» A culture of learning and innovation led by owners who place equal value on people, environment and performance.
» A property that demonstrates how scale, technology and genuine stewardship can work hand-in-hand to create a resilient, future-focused orchard.
Alan says entering the awards helped them demonstrate their work to date in the environmental space. “It allows someone else to look at your business and assess your efforts independently and provides us with insights for future goals.” The orchard’s participated in carbon neutral trials too, in a bid to use fertiliser and fuel more effectively. The bespoke FertiDose automated fertigation unit, commissioned through Fruitfed Supplies, plays an important part in Wiroa’s carefully managed, technically advanced fertigation system which Alan says has improved vine health and productivity.
“We can see huge benefits with this fertigation system. Soil moisture meters mean we don’t apply too much water at any one time. You don’t want to be running water and nutrients right past the rootzone, and leaching into the waterways. We’ve been able to improve our water and nutrient use efficiency considerably which is also lighter on the environment.
“We moved to single pass mowing with a wider mower, and utilised a weed spray boom for more efficient tractor use and herbicide application. When applying foliar fertilisers, we go through every second row but still apply crop protection products via single row passes to ensure thorough application. We assess canopy cover with each spray to judge the best water rate and adjuvants to get the coverage needed.”
Wiroa is also acknowledged for its peoplefocused culture with six of the original eight fulltime staff still employed. As Alan says, he grows people to grow crops. “That’s my personal statement. I’m not out there growing the crops myself, my job is to help our people with the skills and knowledge to do that. Knowledge is only powerful when it’s shared. We have a culture of openness, not blame. We’d rather someone said can you explain that again, than have them go off and not get something right.”
Alan’s always keen to share their learnings with other growers too. “Kiwifruit growers aren’t really in direct competition with each other. We’re seeing organic practices from Bay of Plenty coming into mainstream orcharding. We’re always looking to learn from others too. As a bigger business, we have the opportunityto try new things and share from there.” Alan and the Wiroa team are longterm supporters of Fruitfed Supplies, working with Louise Shepherd, TechnicalHorticultural Representative from the Kerikeri Fruitfed Supplies store for technical advice, fertigation and crop protection products.
