GROWING THE GLOBAL NETWORK: WESTERN GROWERS VISITS NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA By Jeana Cadby, Environment and Climate Director Our mission was simple: Foster international collaboration for biologicals and identify innovation opportunities to support specialty crop production back home. This past February, WGCIT Executive Director Dennis Donohue and I traveled to New Zealand and Australia to advance biological inputs for specialty crops at a global scale, enhance partnerships with our agricultural allies, and get a front-seat view at developing ag tech from innovators Down Under.
Dennis, Jeana and Peter meet with James Araci (L to R), Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency, to discuss opportunities with the Global Trial Network Platform 10.
hardiness and early season. It was a great opportunity to share with their team about Platform10, WG’s international, multi-year collaboration to accelerate promising biological solutions for global specialty crop production. There and Back Again Like California, New Zealand is a big exporter, particularly for fruit and dairy products, and producer of local vegetables. Finding biological solutions to these pressing pest concerns is a shared key priority for Vegetables NZ, the largest vegetable grower association in New Zealand. We visited their research station in Pukekohe, the largest vegetable production region. The fertile volcanic soil supports 80 percent of the bulb onion production, 80 percent of the fresh market potato and is the largest area of glass house production to include tomato and cucumbers nationally. Driving past the fields of fruit vegetables, we felt right at home;
Elevating Local Ag Upon arrival in Auckland, we were greeted with a barrage of signage warning travelers to be wary of potential agricultural threats, particularly the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB). Although the BMSB has not made its way to New Zealand, its wide host range has the potential to devastate local agriculture. During our visit to the Plant and Food Research (PFR) campus in Auckland, we learned that PFR has been working on understanding the life cycle and egg laying habits of the Samurai Wasp, a tiny predatory wasp that has a preference for BMSB. They even let us take a look up close with their electron microscope! This kind of cutting-edge research is done to elevate and protect New Zealand agriculture to the highest degree. PFR also develops delicious specialty fruit varieties, including ‘EarlyBel’ raspberries, and ‘Jazz’, ‘Envy’ and mini-sized ‘Rockit’ apples. They continue to develop varieties that are heat tolerant, increased
13 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com May | June 2024
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