H.O.A. Field Day Feb 19 Rap Up
Last Sunday we had a gathering of 25 people attend Shalumar for the first field day of 2023. Thank you to Alan and Jocelyn Smith for hosting us, also to Michael Southan, CEO of Australian Olive Ass, for travelling up to meet members and be familiar with our Hunter Olive story.
Welcome to Phil and Michelle Mackey who have bought Susan and Bruce Robinson’s grove in Nth Rothsbury; also Karen and Andrew Feehely, although they live at Quorrobolong ,their grove is north of Denman, in Widden Valley. Another new member, although well known to all was Sue Turner, now running her own table olive consultant and processing business (details below).
Our first speaker was Martin Mead, from Farmland Co, at Rutherford. He is very knowledgeable about our local soil characteristics and spoke in detail about different methods of improving organic matter, root function, soil pH, etc. Alan had had his soil analysis done earlier and his grove shows what can be achieved. The take home message, for me, was-get the leaf and soil analysis done first.
Joel Booty, ‘that olive guy’ had his harvester transported to the grove to demonstrate how the machine itself works also the grove requirements to allow proper access to trees. The machine itself is very manoeuvrable for it’s size, however it will be essential to contact Joel early for assessment of your grove and other requirements, i.e. Crates, lifting equipment and transport for fruit.
Peter Allen, PKA Services, also present, will be again bringing a large pruning machine to the Hunter, after harvest, and asks that anyone interested in grove pruning speak to him early. The machine was useful only in the upper Hunter last year due to the extreme wet.
Hopefully this year there will be much better access, as there are quite a few members with trees too tall for efficient harvesting.
Looking forward to a much better harvest this year,
Marie Kearns President HOA
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