Sharing the experiences of summerfruit growers involved in an under-canopy planting project to encourage other orchardists to adopt the same practice will be the project’s focus this season.
The Summerfruit NZ-A Lighter Touch project has been running for the past three seasons on four Central Otago orchards, with the aim of enhancing biodiversity to support pest control and improve soil health.
Seasonal monitoring of the planted understory has been carried out by Bioeconomy Science Institute (BSI), Plant & Food Research group, with two seasons of data showing a higher abundance of beneficial insects in the understory plantings compared to the standard orchard.
Forest Lodge orchard manager Euan White and Kate Colhoun, of Bioeconomy Science Institute (BSI), Plant & and Food Research group, examine a sample of insects collected in the under-canopy plantings.
Over both seasons growers involved in the project were able to reduce the time spent mowing, and the herbicide spraying required in the under-canopy blocks, compared to the standard orchard practice.
Sally Anderson
Summerfruit NZ research and development manager Sally Anderson said the original intention was to continue monitoring to gather more data over the 2025 –26 season.
“However, our findings are substantive enough already, and we know from the BSI monitoring, there was good establishment and growth in the understory, and increased numbers of beneficial insects were found in the understory planted areas.”
BSI has also assessed the seasonal changes in understory plant species and their flowering timings. This has provided good insight into when plants are flowering, and what plant species have established in the under-canopy from initial sowing of the multi species seed mix and then re-emergence the following season.
Sally says Summerfruit NZ recognises the importance of extending these findings to growers to encourage adoption of new practices, rather than the research report simply sitting on the shelf.
“We also saw the opportunity to leverage the work ALT has underway with Scarlatti around enhancing awareness and integration of biological crop protection options.”
An example of understory planting.
The ALT biologicals awareness and integration project has an extension planning support component for all ALT product groups, designed to help advisors and agronomists in supporting growers to integrate biological crop protection solutions into their existing pest and disease management programmes.
“We are using the biologicals extension workshops and tools to build Summerfruit NZ’s capability for extension planning and execution. We know introducing biologicals into a crop protection programme is more complex, and we want to provide our growers with the tools and support to realise the benefits of understory planting.”
The extension plan is currently being developed and will include more face-to-face engagement by the project liaison team, in-field training days in both Hawke’s Bay and Central Otago, and the development of case studies sharing the experiences and insights of growers from three of the orchards involved in the project.
Keep updated with the under-canopy project here. Find out about biologicals awareness and integration project here.
