Facilitating capacity building across the macadamia industry

From 2016 to 2021, the Hort Innovation Macadamia Fund project, Australian macadamia industry innovation and adoption program (MC15004), worked to enhance innovation and technology adoption and facilitate capacity building across the macadamia industry.

Delivered by the Australian Macadamia Society, the project supported the roles and activities of a dedicated Industry Development Manager (IDM) and delivered activities such as the MacGroup workshops, regular grower and consultant meetings and field days, as well as the production of communication materials such as videos and articles in industry publications.

Meet macadamia grower Elle Revell from the Northern Rivers, NSW

Why did you get involved in the program?

“We have only been here for three and a half years, so being a relatively new person in the industry it is good to see what other people are doing and hear about the research. Otherwise, it is only our small team on the farm. We run some trials ourselves on farm, but we are limited by time and the ability to measure yield. Yield monitoring technology on farm in macadamias is still developing so we get our yield data from the processors by sending nuts in separate batches. With storage and logistics, at our scale, it is not efficient to run too many trials at once.

“Being involved with the program means that we do not have to try and run every trial ourselves. We can see the results of the wider industry trials and research and adapt this to our farm as well as sharing the results of our own work.  The networking is also one of the great strengths, I can get in touch with the IDM with an issue and they will put me in touch with someone to talk to.” 

What was your involvement in the program?

“I think I have nearly been to everything they have put on. I go to the MacGroups and workshops, and the online resources are also useful. We are grafting this week, so we are searching the database for that to keep up to date on research. We have also been to a few canopy management field days, and the nursery standards workshop which was good. The pollination podcast was really useful too.”

What changes have you made because of your involvement? What are the results?

Canopy management

“The canopy management field days have helped us develop a plan for the next five years as we were a bit undecided. We have decided to put more money into it as we have the reassurance that we will get the money back. So, we are going to start taking out about 20 per cent of the canopy from the older trees, and we now have the confidence to go about that. Through the program we had access to the researchers, demonstration sites and farmers who have done the trials with the backing data so we could see that replicated and have the confidence. For us it is early days to know the change at a business level because macadamias are so slow growing and slow to react. They only produce nuts on two- to three-year-old wood, so it takes a while to see the results of something like canopy management. But the innovation program gives us the confidence that we are moving in the right direction as we hear from other growers and researchers who have done the work and crunched the numbers.”

Pollination and pest management

“We made changes based on the pollination podcast. It talked about how macadamias do not usually self-pollinate, so now we are making sure we are putting different varieties in as we develop our blocks and supporting native bees with cover crops and shrubs including inter-row plating of shrubs down the centre of our wider rows. We have also seen some good results from this with regards to pest management. With a trial strip of six hectares we only applied one weevil spray in the 2021-22 season, but it got the same yield as the conventional pest control with four to five pest sprays. That is only one year so we might have been lucky, so we will run it again this year which will likely be a higher pest year due to the weather.”

Nursery management

“The nursery workshop was really good. It went over all aspects of growing macadamias in a nursery, so that got us going with best practice for setting it up, and how to meet market standards. Having a two-day event gave us exposure to all the different practices.”

Chemicals

“At the last MacGroup led a big chat about the new chemistry we have available, so we have changed some of the chemicals we use. They had the researchers and the chemical company and also growers there, so it seemed a bit more objective, and a good forum for discussion about usage and regulations. You need to be careful when they put out new chemistry, so it is great to have the support.”