Regional Forum’s exciting return

NEWS

– Extension News –

Regional Forum’s exciting return

Liz Singh, Avocados Australia Industry Development Manager

After a year of talking to people via computer the Avocado industry development and extension (AV17005) team got the green light to meet face to face. South Queensland strongly supported the return of the Regional Forum in Crows Nest on Wednesday March 24 with 111 growers and industry members participating.

AV17005 project lead Simon Newett, from the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, said it was great to see that the Avocado Industry Development and Extension project was valued so highly by the industry.

“It’s great that we can get back to delivering in-person events, helping growers to improve best practice,” he said.

Avocados Australia CEO John Tyas provided an industry update that highlighted the industry importance of growers completing the annual Avocados Australia OrchardInfo survey.

John indicated that the national tree crop map run by the University of New England showed considerably more hectares planted to avocados than were recorded in the OrchardInfo report.

“Without an accurate picture of avocado plantings by region and age, it makes it harder to forecast the industry production capacity which can create a window of opportunity for imports,” he said.

The OrchardInfo tree census link will be emailed in August/ September. If you haven’t previously received the Avocados Australia census email, please contact us on 07 3846 6566 or admin2@avocado.org.au.

Read about the information presented on the Implementing best practice of avocado fruit management and handling practices from farm to ripening (AV18000) and Monitoring avocado quality at retail (AV19003) on pages 55 and 19 respectively.

At the Crows Nest event, industry members also heard from Hort Innovation Head of Extension Jane Wightman, who provided an informative update on the R&D corporation’s new extension program.

This program is designed to complement existing industryspecific extension and communication projects, with Hort Innovation’s regional extension managers playing a linking role and bring broad coalitions together to share skills and capacity, to solve identified regional problems. Read more on page 15.

Jane is the head of the new ‘Extension and adoption’ team recently started at Hort Innovation, and she outlined several of the RDC’s current activities, including: 1. sustainability plans – various industries are developing these. Consumers are now looking for this type of information (including an industry’s efforts to reduce food waste) before they buy 2. Hort Innovation is currently assisting industries (including the avocado industry) to renew their Strategic Industry

Plans. These are prepared for five year periods and outline the aims of the R&D and marketing for the next five years 3. the importance of industry statistics.

The main topic “avocado nutrition” was presented by Liz Singh (Avocados Australia Industry Development Manager) who dashed everyone’s hopes of a quick fix when she stated that avocado nutrition was complicated, that it was not stationary or repeatable, it required continual monitoring and quick changes to match nutrient requirements to crop load, health and future cropping opportunities.

Liz said that there were seven areas that she would consider when looking at avocado nutrition (Figure 1). Yet, she said that having a better understanding of what happens to fertiliser when it is added to the soil in terms of nutrient interaction and retention could provide the opportunity to maximise nutrient efficiency and avocado nutrition to maintain tree health, support fruit growth and optimise tree function.

Not being able to see what happens to your fertiliser when you add it to the soil doesn’t mean that you can’t stitch together a good picture of what is happening with information from your soil test and a basic understanding of soil chemistry. Your soil pH will determine availability of nutrients, your

soil type and organic matter levels will help to determine your soil’s capacity to hold cation-based nutrients (calcium, potassium, ammonium, magnesium, sodium etc.) through cation exchange capacity (CEC) (Figure 2) and your electrical conductivity will determine salt loading. Liz indicated that by understanding these key factors and selecting your fertilisers accordingly to suit tree phenology we could not only extend tree function but optimise tree performance.

See the Avocado Nutrition factsheet put together by Liz Singh and the Soil and Leaf Testing flyer developed by Bridie Carr (DAF) as well as all the PowerPoint presentations and presentations from the South Queensland Regional Forum in the BPR Library under Events.

More information

Check the fortnightly Guacamole newsletter and the events calendar at avocado.org.au for future dates. If you would like more information on the project, contact Avocados Australia Industry Development Manager Liz Singh, 0499 854 111 or idm@avocado.org.au (Mon-Thurs 9am-3pm), or at DAF, contact Simon Newett, simon.newett@daf.qld.gov.au or 07 5381 1326, or Bridie Carr, bridie.carr@daf.qld.gov.au or 07 5381 1327.

Acknowledgement

The Avocado industry development and extension (AV17005) project has been funded by Hort Innovation, using the avocado research and development levy, co-investment from the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and contributions from the Australian Government.

Figure 1. Targeting avocado nutrition. Image: L. Singh

Figure 2. Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC). Image. L. Singh (Agrihort 2018)

Out and about at the SQ Regional Forum

A year to the day, Avocados Australia and the team from AV17005 were back with face-to-face events, at the South Queensland Regional Forum in Crows Nest. Back in 2020, 24 March was our first day of lockdown in Queensland. While the avocado webinars proved to be popular (and will continue), it was certainly good to be out and about again.

John Coates, Balmoral, and John Davies, Redbank Plantation, at the Crows Nest forum in March. Mary and Peter Annand, Bellthorpe, were in Crows Nest for the first in-person extension event in a year.

Ken and Sherilyn Otte, at the Crows Nest forum, with Justin Clarke, MEA.

Rory Tomlinson, Tanuki and Charlie Colgan, San Carlo Farms, in Crows Nest. Antony Allen, Avolution, and orchard walk host Sally Boardman, Sunnyspot, at the Crows Nest forum.

Lisa and Andy Fyffe, Avo Tree with Michael Flynn, Balmoral. As part of the grower experiences session, Robyn Lubach, brought in samples of leaves from her orchard, Redbank Plantation at Gatton, to demonstrate the difference good nutrition can make.