5 September 1997 Lincoln students put Auckland horticulture under microscope

Auckland's big input to horticulture in New Zealand has drawn a group of 30 Lincoln University students to the region for a three-day, 12-sites study tour.

"No recent definitive study of Auckland horticulture appears to exist, so Lincoln's horticulture students should gain considerable insights if they attempt to come up with one," says Senior Horticulture Lecturer Mike Morley-Bunker, who is leading the tour.

Figures from 1993 show that Auckland had over 20 percent of the New Zealand area for outdoor crops of persimmon, strawberry, plums, feijoa, broccoli, cabbage cauliflower, celery, courgette, cucumber, lettuce, water melon, onion and silverbeet. It also had over 20 percent of New Zealand's area devoted to tomatoes, carnations, roses, chrysanthemum and gypsophila.

"The commercial, social and recreational aspects of horticulture are all visible in the Auckland region," says Mr Morley-Bunker, "and for the Lincoln students there is the added bonus of seeing the cultivation of plants not grown or grown easily in Canterbury."

The Lincoln students' tour includes viewing outdoor crops at Pukekohe such as onions, and persimmons and macadamias at Helensville, but the programme covers a wider range of activities than just field cropping. Environmental horticulture, for example, is also being examined through a meeting with leading landscape group Isthmus.

Furthermore, the marketing of organic horticultural products is part of the programme with a visit to Ceres Organics.

At Zespri International, Ponsonby, the students are hearing about what goes into exporting a $400 million crop of kiwifruit. Then there are the new and unusual crops that Dick Endt is showing them at Landsendt Exotic Plants at Oratia in West Auckland.

"All in all I'm hoping the Auckland visit will show the students the human face and workplace application behind an important region's contribution to the country's 1996 figure of $1.5 billion worth of horticulture exports," says Mr Morley-Bunker.

"When they are future workers in the industry I hope they will be inspired to aim at helping to surpass that figure and take exports beyond the $2 billion mark."

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