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Wi Pere Horticulture general manager Wayne Hall was ecstatic about the turnout for its field day. Photo Credit: Alphapix
The second Ahuwhenua competition field day took place at the orchard of Wi Pere Trust, at Waipaoa near Gisborne, with more than 250 coming along to look at the property.
Guests were welcomed at Tangihanga Orchard, Wi Pere Trust's blueberry, citrus, and apple orchard. Here they heard from members of the Wi Pere board and staff about the operation.
This orchard was badly damaged by Cyclone Gabrielle. As part of the presentation, guests were shown a video of the damage to highlight the work that has been done by staff and trustees to get the operation up and running.
Wi Pere Trust Horticulture consists of 79ha of permanent fruit crops. This is made up of 26ha of Gold kiwifruit (11ha of which is organic), 4ha of persimmons, 15ha of citrus, 4ha of blueberries and 20ha of Rockit and 10ha Tarzi of apples.
Wi Pere Horticulture is managed by general manager Wayne Hall, with eight full-time staff and employing up to 85 casual workers at key times.
After the presentations in the marquee at Tangihanga, visitors were taken by a fleet of buses to the Toroa Orchard. On the way to this property a special radio link was set up for people to get information about the Wi Pere operation. They heard about the damage caused by the floods and how the operation had managed the after effects of Cyclone Gabrielle. At this site, guests were able to see persimmons that were in the process of being harvested.
Hall told Hort News he was ecstatic about the turnout of the field day and says the good weather on the day enabled them to showcase their operation. He added how people were amazed to see how well Wi Pere Trust had recovered from Cyclone Gabrielle during the past two months.
"By showing them photographs of what it was like, compared to how it is today was revealing to many people," Hall explained. "Our apple and blueberry orchards suffered badly during Gabrielle. In regard to apples, we lost about 1.6 hectares of the 20 hectares planted."
Hall says the other benefit of the field day was the opportunity to tell people about the Ahuwhenua Trophy competition and how this has contributed to the growth of Māori agribusiness.
"A lot of local people weren't familiar with what Ahuwhenua was all about and were really amazed at the prestige of the event."
In a few weeks the winner of the prestigious Ahuwhenua Trophy for the top Māori dairy farm will be revealed at a gala dinner in Hamilton. In the past couple of weeks, the two finalists in this year’s competition have been holding on-farm field days to showcase why they are finalists. Peter Burke has attended both field days.
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