2 October 1992 Synergy of Research and Teaching at Lincoln

As at all universities, teaching and research at Lincoln go hand in hand. Each provides a stimulus for the other. The research enthusiasms of lecturers spin off into the classroom and the response of the students is always a ready source of staff encouragement. Indeed it is the presence of active research programmes which helps make universities distinct from other educational institutions.

Lincoln University's Horticulture Department is involved in a range of research – viticulture; apple cultivar selection; pear growing; stone fruit cultivar evaluation; potted plant nutrition; economic fruit crop modelling; sub-tropical fruit viability; the application of computer technology to horticultural management; floriculture; biological husbandry; and high-density fruit tree planting.

Lincoln horticulture students at all levels get a chance to observe or participate in the department’s research.

At the postgraduate level there are, for example, five masters students working on various aspects of viticulture and wine science; three honours students working in the floriculture area; one masters student working on the apple root-bagging trial; and another student has almost finished his doctorate, producing an apple production model which appears to have good predictability for apple tree profitability and thinning strategies.

And the postgraduates are not alone in this close contact with research.

"A lot of our undergraduate teaching involves hands-on experiments, particularly in the cut flower and nursery areas," says department head Professor Richard Rowe.

"Also our biological husbandry work attracts a lot of students in management and experimental work, for example in non-chemical means of controlling weeds among onion crops."

Of research in general at Lincoln let's now look at two areas in particular – apples and stone fruit.

The department is on to a major success with an apple cultivar from the Campbell collection of cultivars obtained from Temuka several years ago.

Starting with about 60 seedling cultivars of assorted types, a selection programme found that 14 had promising characteristics and of these two in particular merited close attention. The Apple and Pear Marketing Board is now taking considerable interest, patenting is in hand, and further developments will be handled through FIPIA. Gilbert Wells is the staff member who has been closely involved with the selection process.

Apple research has also involved a close study of the principle of high density planting. Most of the modern orchards in Holland, Germany and France are grown on this method which scientists at East Malling Research Station in Britain developed.

Essentially it is the use of the apple rootstock, malling 9, which produces smaller trees occupying less orchard space, gives fruit earlier in the life of the tree and in greater abundance relative to size than vigorous trees which demand more space. Senior tutor Mandy Cahn is leading the research in this area.

Activities in the area of stone fruit include Professor Rowe's work on nectarines and plums. With the nectarines he has been evaluating new cultivars as they come into the country, and with the plums he has been looking at local selections and imported U.S. cultivars. It is early days yet for the U.S. ones but the local plum cultivars are showing promise, he says.

He has researched crop loading – looking at the relationship between size of tree and number of fruit left at thinning and the relationship between yield and fruit size. Findings have given most growers a recipe at thinning time for the most profitable crop loading. It's a calculation based on knowing what the price is for the different grades of fruit. Principles to emerge are that there is an advantage in thinning early if you want very large fruit but such fruit can be uneconomical in terms of quantity. The most profitable crop load gets no advantage out of thinning early.

Professor Rowe has also been looking at alternatives to the labour-intensive and therefore expensive thinning by hand. He has investigated chemical thinners – they exist for apples, so why not for stone fruit? Preliminary work with nectarine indicated that Gibberillic Acid 3 applied in March/April was effective in reducing flower numbers the following spring by interfering with flower initiation. Full-scale field trials now need to be carried out to see if this method has practical application to orcharding.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.