New Zealand study tour for Goulburn Valley young growers, 2011 (AP10700)

This is a final research report from Hort Innovation’s historical archives. Please note that as these reports may date back as far as the 1990s, the content and recommendations within them may be superseded by more recent research.

What was it all about?

The Goulburn Valley young growers group regularly met as a group prior, during and post fruit growing seasons to crossover information, have a meal and a few drinks and to also discuss and plan their next trip to see what the group can learn from other growing regions. Previous trips involved visiting orchards in Southern Victoria, Adelaide Hills of South Australia and previous trips to the U.S.

Many of the previous study visits were to areas where more high density plantings of apples could be observed. The group consisted of a mixture of apple and pear growers for the Goulburn Valley and the difficulty when planning a trip to visit other growing areas was choosing orchards and fruit growing areas that a variety of local growers could benefit from what they saw and heard from other orchardists.

After meeting prior to the beginning of the growing season the young growers decided to have their next study tour to the Nelson growing area in New Zealand. The area was known for having a lot of orchards under the age of 10 years of both apples and pears and a local pomefruit industry geared to export.