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Jim Walker SCIENTIST FEATURE
Dr Jim Walker: Taking New Zealand apples places
The United Nations designated 2021 as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, but fruit and vegetables have always been the heart of Plant & Food Research’s business. By Nickkita Lau : Plant & Food Research Its innovation and science help growers improve production systems, breed better healthier fruit and vegetables, protect produce from pests and diseases and deliver quality produce to consumers around the world. This article is part of a series to introduce some of the scientists who are working to make that happen. To Dr Jim Walker and the apple growers that he has been working closely with for the last 40 years, growing nothing short of the best will suffice. “Everyone in the industry is motivated to grow the perfect fruit and give people what they want. There’s no point growing something substandard, it costs twice as much to pack, ship and market the fruit as it does to grow it.” Perfection means more than the perfect ratio of sweetness to acidity or the perfect crunch. Perfection is grown in one of the most sustainable apple orchard production systems 24
The ORCHARDIST : MAY 2021
in the world. Other countries have tried, but New Zealand is the only country that has a two-decade long record of successfully exporting apples to Japan, a highly exclusive, premium market with one of the strictest biosecurity requirements for imported apples. While Japan has a zero tolerance policy for the apple pest codling moth, Europe demands negligible chemical residues in contrast. Over the last two decades, the Plant & Food Research team has played a significant role in helping the industry satisfy strict quarantine inspection requirements, and the preferences of different markets with different varieties grown in a production system with the lowest possible agrichemical inputs. Dr Walker is one of a team of scientists at Plant & Food Research mentored by esteemed integrated pest management ‘guru’ Dr Howard Wearing before they all become experts in their own right.
