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TreeCropper Issue 50 – June 2007
Front cover: Peter Robinson walks the Waikato and Thames-Coromandel Branch through his chestnut crop in Hamilton.
2 President’s report 3 National Committee 4 Mailbox / Tree Crop Bed Swap 5 Tree crops – back to the future 8 Feijoas 11 Book reviews 12 Chestnuts – 13 importing in NZ 19 in USA 20 growing organically 24 commercial reality 25 consuming 26 Apple facts 27 Codlin moth trap 28 Fig research 32 Grazers or browsers 34 Edible oaks 37 Conference 2007 field trips 44 Dr Don McKenzie Award 45 NZTCA research 46 Food Competition 47 Pips and pieces 48 Membership application Inside back cover – planning for 2008: National Conference Eastwoodhill road trip
Back cover: Scenes from Conference 2007.
” You don’t join Tree Crops to learn what to do,” said NZTCA Northern Region and Conference 2007 Committee chairman Derek Craig. “You join to listen to others to learn what not to do.” And this summed up my experience of Conference 2007. Don’t get me wrong, it was definitely not a showcase of errors. Rather, it showed me, who had joined NZTCA looking for answers, the truth of the old cliche – the more we learn the more we realise what we do not know. We heard from scientists who have studied and analysed one aspect of one disease as it affects one species. But Mother Nature is a complex web of interactions and consequences – how do we hope to identify, let alone understand, them all? We listened to a speaker who totally contradicted everything we have previously read about pruning; who unashamedly told us to burn our books and backed up his arguments with a logic that demanded consideration. We visited a teacher, a guru worshipped for her expertise. We saw her successes, but realised that, like the rest of us, even she has learnt from mistakes. I guess, like many others, I joined NZTCA with the selfish expectations that I would pick the brains of those who knew – but I realise that, instead, I have just joined the ranks of those who ask the questions.
