9 April 2003 The Old Order Changes...

In Lincoln University's horticultural research plantings, hazelnuts drop to the ground unheeded, apples decay on the ground, and the ornamental magnolia collection has had its time in the sun.

At Lincoln's information tent at the South Island Field Days, the would-be student may search in vain for a horticulture degree course. The word "horticulture" has disappeared from the frontline literature: a little like the tame journalist in Iraq, it may be embedded, but lacks its own teeth.

The university's first Professor of Horticulture, appointed with great hopes last year to revitalise horticulture programmes, has returned to Australia. As students turn to specialist degree courses like viticulture and oenology, class numbers have been driven down, and on that basis, two lecturers, one in nursery and floriculture, the other in amenity horticulture, left through redundancy and early retirement.

Much as he hates to admit it, the most senior horticulturist left at Lincoln, Professional Studies School academic programme director Richard Stevens, says that was the correct decision. The net effect of very small class sizes in production papers was to make them uneconomic. The bottom line is that staff numbers are driven by the numbers of fulltime students.

During his 28 years at Lincoln, Mr Stevens has seen out a number of mergers of university divisions, all designed to make the most of the synergies across teaching groups. A decade ago, the Department of Horticulture merged with Farm Management, and since that time, horticultural science and production has moved first to plant science and then into the soil, plant and ecological sciences division directed by Professor Brian Jordan.

However, horticultural systems and management, organised and taught by Mr Stevens, sit with the Applied Management and Computing division.

This year, Bachelor of Horticulture and Bachelor of Horticultural Science degree courses were terminated. But though numbers fell to the extent that standalone horticulture degrees are now not offered, Mr Stevens stresses that horticultural streams still exist within restructured degrees.

As people try to see clearly where horticulture sits now, there is even confusion within the university, he says.

But though the circumstances of horticulture programmes at Lincoln may be difficult, the same thing applies elsewhere. At a time when the horticulture industry is worth $2 billion in exports and $2 billion to the domestic economy, and is a significant contributor to the GDP, most tertiary organisations are finding it difficult to attract horticulture students.

Lincoln is committed to its highly successful viticulture courses, which recruit five times the numbers of students as horticulture even though the industry represents only 10% of the value of the horticultural industry.

"Fundamentally that's our problem, and it's bigger than Lincoln can solve on its own. Horticulture used to be buoyant, now it's not. We're all in the same boat. Massey had a Hort. Sci degree which became a Bachelor of Applied Science, and our two horticulture degrees have disappeared in name and therefore in visibility."

One of the problems has been that unlike agriculture streams, which are fed by students from a farming background, there is no such pool of prospective students of horticulture.

Horticulture students tend to come to university because they are interested in plants, and as the fortunes of the industry go up and down, student numbers follow.

At present, there is a negative perception of horticulture which is quite unjustified, he says.

He partly blames the media.

"Normally, what gets reported is something like disastrous weather or industry infighting. I cringe when I see those stories. Horticulture is an industry which is seen to be tearing itself apart, in direct contrast to the wine industry which always projects a positive image."

Individually, no-one can do much about it, but collectively, they have a chance, he says.

As industry groups including FruitFed and VegFed get together to express concern about these issues, industry representatives are now working with polytechnics, ITOs and universities on materials to promote horticultural careers. Lincoln and Massey are working towards a future profile identifying labour requirements and career paths within the industry, but there is no short term fix.

"An excellent example of how numbers follow perceptions was the kiwifruit boom. In what was a tight and conservative industry, kiwifruit opened people's eyes to new opportunities, and at that stage Lincoln had 140 diploma students and about 60 taking degree courses."

Today, diploma students can be counted on your fingers, and numbers in degree courses have only been kept economically viable, at about 32-35, by the linkage of production and management through the applied management papers.

As a result of that "packaging", Mr Stevens presents the applied management course to both viticulture and horticulture students. The popularity of viticulture is justified, and if the definition of horticulture includes viticulture, then horticulture is actually expanding at Lincoln, he says.

But traditional horticulture is much more volatile because of the way it is perceived. The word "horticulturist" to young people at a careers expo is likely to conjure up an image of someone raking up leaves in the Botanic Gardens, rather than a molecular physicist.

He shares the same fears for production horticulture as Lincoln's senior lecturer in plant science, Dr Derrick Moot, recently expressed for production agriculture.

Dr Moot says funding is hard to secure, and the career path for students is increasingly narrow. As numbers of production based PhD students fall, not enough are coming through the system, to the detriment of production based research and potentially the agriculture industry.

Massive inputs are needed to change people's minds and get them back into this area of study, says Dr David McNeil, who until this year was Professor of Horticulture at Lincoln.

The major problem is one of student perception, and production horticulture is simply not popular. With the spawning of successful landscape and viticulture groups, student numbers in production horticulture degree courses fell away.

Working with the horticulture industry, Lincoln has tried to address the lack of interest by promoting the strong growth in horticulture production and higher level jobs available.

"But the enthusiasm is not there for the more general horticulture degree."

The lack of student interest in general production horticulture degrees is worldwide, not just in New Zealand.

At Lincoln, changed degree courses have squeezed out any possibility of providing a complete suite of degree level production horticulture subjects.

"Costs remain the same and student numbers are down. The consequence has been a need to rationalise by keeping only the more popular and limited range of horticulture courses that have a more general appeal."

By concentrating on this core, the university hopes to service production horticulture in combination with specialist horticulture areas.

"I do stress reductions are at the degree level, as the external diploma level is strong and the postgraduate programme is also still strong," says Dr McNeil.

Lyn McKinnon, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand