Open-ground establishment trials
Open-ground indigenous plant establishment trials – a Mahurangi world-first
Time for councils to capitalise on open-ground trials
The Mahurangi trials, the Silverdale trials, and then those at Taupō, all said the same thing. Open-ground-raised indigenous plants, in all those trials, have been found to establish every bit as well as the same species—including mānuka—produced at many times…
An indigenous farm-forestry demonstration trail
In an ideal world, the Mahurangi Magazine would stick to its knitting. It could focus on the environment of the Mahurangi catchment, particularly the harbour’s elevated sediment accumulation rate. In this ideal world, the global, big picture issue of…
Centennial past time for 2nd royal commission on forestry
There’s a strong argument for planting mostly radiata pine. Drawing down carbon dioxide at double the rate of kānuka and mānuka, radiata pine grows seven times faster in Aotearoa than in its Californian home range. And 160 years after its introduction…
Handbook helps spark indigenous plant revolution
Twenty thousand down, and about as many again to go. This week field technician Michael Bergin remeasured two indigenous plants trial blocks in the Weiti catchment and started in on the trials in Sandspit Road. The trials are a world first in Aotearoa. They…
Open-ground field days workshop notes
A considerable proportion of the pastoral land in Aotearoa, particularly riparian and marginal steep hill country, could be retired and established in indigenous species, which would improve environmental outcomes. On some sites retired…
Standing room only and tail wind to Waiuku
It could be seen as the epitome of the failure of market forces. Raising indigenous plants by the open-ground method was always going to be more cost-effective, yet it was the many more times expensive planter bag method that became an overnight…
State-owned enterprise open-ground 100%
Next week’s open-ground field days have just become a much bigger deal. Philip Smith of Taupō Native Plant Nursery said on Thursday that Landcorp has taken every open-ground plant they currently have growing, and that next year…
Seats set to fill fast for first of two open-ground field days
It’s little wonder the new Taupō nursery’s in South Auckland. If the 15.4% of Auckland region that has eroded or eroding soil was to be planted, half a billion trees would be required. At $3 each, the average cost of an indigenous plant raised in…
Tāne’s Tree Trust project saving Lake Taupō
Lake Taupō is the largest lake in Aotearoa. With an area of 622 square kilometres, the lake arose in its present form from the Oruanui eruption of 181 ad. It contains an enormous body of exceptionally pure water. The iconic status of the…
Kinked root underlines open-ground strongpoint
One field day was never going to do it. Five field days might start to do justice to Gary Heaven and Shelley Trotter’s deer farming, farm forestry, riparian restoration, walkway and winery projects and operations. The previous field day, held in February, had left...
Mya’s harbour-saving message on open-ground
I am explaining the importance of open-ground plants, because I think open-ground is the best way to provide plants to plant along the edges of rivers and streams. We need these areas planted to protect the Mahurangi’s benthic community…
Not perfect but a field day and a half
The preceding two days’ weather had precipitated a trickle of apologies. However the day dawned as fine as the forecast charts, stemming what otherwise might have become a flood of cancellations, and vindicating the decision to charter a bus. With the…
Open-ground indigenous plants establishment trials
Report to the Sustainable Farming Fund Aotearoa leads the world in radiata pine forestry. It also leads the world in radiata pine forestry nursery practices. Consequently, it is surprising that indigenous nursery practices have failed to piggyback on the success of…
Science to underpin a revolution measuring success
Six thousand, two hundred and forty trees measured. To be precise, some were not so much measured, as their death or absence noted. Even so, research technician Michael Bergin took more than 18 000 measurements, the cack-handed editor’s…
Time to pay for that key advice
Key advice leading to the open-ground project came from a person with no interest in open-ground methods whatsoever. It began with a silver-bullet mission. Could harakeke, produced in bulk and planted at every opportunity, provide a nurse…
Open-ground indigenous plants one-pager
Kim Morresey suggested a one-pager might be useful. Having attended the open-ground open day in Taupō, Ms Morresey, project leader of the Mahurangi Action Plan, was acutely aware that the concept of raising plants other than in containers…
Raising plants in open-ground beds
Raising plants open-ground can seem counterintuitive. It is easy to imagine that the best start in life a plant can have is to be lovingly raised in a pot in a nursery, and then carefully planted. But for foresters, raising plants in pots is downright potty…
Mahurangi helping Taupō, Taupō helping Mahurangi
In February 2007, a $81.5 million fund was established to protect Lake Taupō. The strategy was to head off the sort of degradation that Rotorua has been fighting at enormous expense for three decades, and will probably be fighting for at least…
Open-ground indigenous plant trials another string
Dr David Bergin is well underway laying out the second and third open-ground trial sites, at Silverdale, using another mile of string and three of his adult and late-teens children. The site beside Sandspit Road is textbook—imminently accessible and…
Open-ground open day that was a milestone
Milestone has become a somewhat devalued word. The open-ground open day at Taupō on Saturday was one of the stages that are termed milestones in the project’s contract with the Sustainable Farming Fund. Some of the milestones are rather…
Open-ground open day at Taupō Native Plant Nursery
Taupō is a long way from the Mahurangi. So why, the reader may wonder, this interest in the Taupō Native Plant Nursery. The full story is elsewhere, but briefly, it has everything to do with the elevated sediment accumulation rate in the…
Everything well in hand in Taupō
Nursery manager Philip Smith has got everything well in hand. My assistant Michael and I called in briefly last Monday at Taupō Native Plant Nursery, on way to a week working on a Wellington project. All the seed supplied from Mahurangi, from…
Notes for the nursery at Taupō
We assume that the polythene planter bag and Hillsons Rootrainer stock is going to be raised as per standard practice at Taupō. Taupō Native Plant Nursery’s way of doing things is probably little different from any other container nursery, so…
Open-ground indigenous plants all go at Taupō
Sunday, Dr David Bergin and his assistant, his eldest son Michael, stopped at Mahurangi West on their way back from Northland. David and Michael had spent the previous week thinning and pruning naturally-regenerating stands of tōtara on…
Plants for trials to be raised in Taupō
The Sustainable Farming Fund is laudably flexible. Recipients of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s fund are urged to speak up if, partway into a project, better outcomes can potentially be achieved by re-jigging the plan. The pilot open-ground…
Open-ground indigenous plant project so far
Three small open-ground plots containing a total of around a thousand plants were established in the spring of 2006. The conditions at the Jones Road nursery proved to be very conducive for most of the indigenous species planted. From…
Open-ground indigenous plant kick-start
It was right there, in the Sustainable Farming Fund criteria: “…the project will make a positive difference by actively addressing the problem/opportunity (e.g. it involves an innovative proposal and/or will kick-start something that has stalled…