1 'RURAL DELIVERY' THEME Captions by Virginia Philp. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 Hello and welcome to Rural Delivery. Avocados are NZ's third largest fresh-fruit export industry after kiwifruit and apples. This week, we hear about efforts being made in the search for consistent annual crop yields in avocado orchards. Then we meet Scott Newman, whose business is providing solutions to cleaning out the hard-to-reach spaces under farm sheds around the country. And we find out the secret to making a great pie learned over three generations of pie-makers at Maketu Pies. One of the biggest challenges in growing avocados is getting consistent cropping. An avocado tree can produce up to a million flowers, but only 0.3% of those will set fruit. That's a crop of only three fruit of every thousand flowers. Plant & Food Research have been working on finding ways to improve pollination and fruit-set rates for more consistent annual yields. Pollination scientist David Pattemore explains. The focus of the project is to try and understand what are the factors driving the biannual bearing that we see in avocado production. So, some years you get a lot of crop, and in other years you don't. On top of that, there's another cycle we see in NZ, which we call irregular bearing, where some years we get a lot of flowers and we don't get any fruit. Uh, so we're really focused on that, on those conditions where you get flowers and you don't get fruit, to understand whether improved pollination in those years could improve fruit set and help to mitigate that, uh, biannual bearing. Pollination of avocados in NZ is largely done through the use of honeybee hives, like it is for most crops. And so we started from a position of trying to understand how that was functioning. Were the honeybees doing their job? We also knew that avocados had an unusual flowering system, but we didn't quite understand how unique that system was here in NZ. Each flower initially opens as a female, and that female flower is only open for an hour or two, and that's the entire period of time that that flower can be pollinated and produce a fruit. That female flower closes, and then on a subsequent day, opens as a male and release pollen that could be used to pollinate other flowers. So, this flower here is a female-stage flower. You can see the central style sticking up but all the anthers just pressed flat against the sides of the petals. These female flowers, they're now starting to close, and when they open up again as a male, they look more like this, where those anthers are actually sticking out. The interesting thing about that cycle is you can get two different types of avocado trees. Some trees flower as female in the morning, close, and then the next day open in the afternoon as a male. And other cultivars, what we call type-B cultivars, open as female in the afternoon, close and open as male in the morning the next day. So what you ideally want to do is you want to have an orchard with a mix of type-A cultivars that are female in the morning with type-B cultivars that are male in the morning. So you get transfer of male pollen from a type-B cultivar to the Hass avocado. The traditional pattern that everyone quotes about type A opening as female in the morning, it's already known the temperature effect of that and that in certain conditions, that cycle seems to switch. What we were able to do is using a system of cameras taking photos every five minutes over the entire flowering season ` we amassed a data set of hundreds of thousands of pictures ` we were able to track really closely how the opening sequence followed the temperature conditions. And what we found is that the colder it got, the later in the day the female flower opened. So if it was a really cold night the night before, those female flowers wouldn't open until the late afternoon or even in the evening. And interestingly enough, on a good proportion of those nights, those female flowers then stayed open all night long ` something that hadn't been known about before with avocados. I think that's a really interesting stream of research that needs to be done to understand how to mitigate those cold temperatures. Because not only does it affect when the flowers open; we know from other research being done in Plant & Food that it affects the viability of the flowers, it changes the rate at which the pollen tubes can grow through the female flowers. So it does negatively impact, especially at really cold temperatures, on the ability to set fruit. So I think, you know, we need to look at whether frost fans or other measures can actually raise the temperature enough on those really cold nights to ensure that you get at least some pollination occurring. We need to understand the cycles of receptivity of flowers through the course of the day so that we ensure that we have the right pollinators for the job. Each insect species has a different activity pattern and a different response to environmental conditions. Honeybees are fantastic pollinators, but they do have quite a constrained activity pattern. They sort of increase activity through up until midday, early afternoon, and then the activity tails off. And when we're getting a significant proportion of our days which we experience here in NZ when the avocado flowering is actually pushed right back into the early evening, we need to look at pollinators that are active in the early evening. I think honeybees, they're a good generalist crop across many different species, and the real benefit with honeybees is you can bring in vast numbers of them really easily. So, the problem is that with some crops, the flower isn't really their top favourite, and so avocado really isn't favoured by honeybees, especially if you've got citrus or clover flowering nearby. So it can be difficult to get sufficient bee visits. But the other real problem with avocados is that honeybee colonies are these highly structured social organisations, and individual bees will specialise on visiting either a male or a female flower. And so you get a whole bunch of honeybees that are visiting male flowers producing pollen and returning to the hive, and then you have another set of bees visiting female flowers, and you're not getting sufficient cross-pollination. You're not getting bees travelling from a male flower to a female flower. And so that specificity in their behaviour is one of the limiting factors. So we're really interested in other pollinators that might not show that same specificity. Uh, bumblebees are one. They are another social bee species, but they don't have the same hierarchical structure in the hive. And so an individual bumblebee is more likely to move easily between male and female flowers, switching between nectar and pollen gathering. And even more so, flies, they don't have a central place they're returning to. They just move pretty much at random across the orchard, and so they're going to be much better at cross-pollinating and moving between the male flowers to the female flowers. Ollie, show me bees. Show me bees. We've actually trained Ollie to detect bumblebee nests underground, and if we're building artificial nests, we need to know what a real nest looks like. And so Ollie, basically, is trained to help us find enough wild nests so that we can really characterise what they look like so we can build the best artificial nests. Good boy. Go find bees. Ollie, show me bees. When we saw the fact that we had these female flowers open all night long when during the day they were only open for a few hours, it really gave us pause for thought. Are there nocturnal pollinators that could play a role in pollinating avocado orchards in NZ? So we've done quite a lot of surveys. We've caught insects off flowers at night, and we've quantified how much pollen those insects are carrying. And we've found a real diversity of moths, crane flies, mosquitoes, gnats that visit flowers and carry pollen at night. It's very hard to quantify their role, though. All our standard methods through the daytime don't work at night because we're altering their behaviour so much. But I think it's early days yet. I think the first question we have to answer is whether there is sufficient fruit set that can occur at those night-time conditions to make it worthwhile pursuing a night-time pollinator. But I think what we do know is that a pollinator that's active in the early morning and the late afternoon and evening is definitely something that would benefit avocado pollination. We'll be back soon to have a look at one solution to the problem of managing manure under covered yards and sheds. Hi, Carol. You're here for your hearing test. Yes, I am. Lovely. Come on through, please. (BEEP!) BOY: Hi, Mum. It's Eddy here. Huh! You are the best mum in the whole wide world. But sometimes you don't hear so well. Sometimes it makes me sad. I love you so much. (HEARTFELT MUSIC) I don't wanna be sad about your hearing anymore. CHILD: Something as little as a free hearing check can make a big difference. 1 'RURAL DELIVERY' THEME Welcome back. Cleaning out manure from underneath covered yards and sheds is an unpleasant task and often postponed, but it's an essential part of farmyard maintenance, as excess manure can result in a number of issues, including poor drainage and a health and safety problem for shearers and other farmworkers. One enterprising ex-fencer, Scott Newman, has come up with a solution to this problem. We basically travel the countryside cleaning out under woolsheds, digging out covered yards. We do cattle yards and calf-rearing sheds and such. We've also been employed to clean out under houses that have been flooded out and get the silt out from under the utilities and to lower the ground level, um, you know, when they've wanted to do this government, um, insulation programme. Uh, we've done a number of those jobs as well. The covered yards themselves, they do a lot of stock work inside now that they used to do outside, so it doesn't get the moisture and the mud on it to carry it out, and it builds up in there over a period of time. Gates start to drag on the ground, it wears out gates, and it's not a pleasant environment with all that dust as well. We need to get rid of that when stock are in there as well. The issue with build-up under the shearing sheds is the farmers pen-up the night before and the stock are held for that period of time usually two days prior to, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they've cleaned out. So over a period of time, there is a residual build-up in there, and there's no easy way of getting it out. Obviously, we've got a bit of a height issue, so that's standard SOB, mate. 'Back in 2004, we had a fairly substantial flood issue in Feilding, 'and I was a fencing contractor at the time.' To supplement my income with the fencing that I could do, I, uh, contacted a friend of mine who had a farm and a woolshed of course, and I said to him, 'What's the chances of cleaning out your woolshed?' And he said, 'Go for your life.' So I did, and I did it the old-fashioned way ` shovel and wheelbarrow, you know? And, uh, two days of that, I thought, 'Oh my God.' You know? 'There's gotta be an easier way of doing it.' Believe it or not, I had a dream. I always said it was me grandfather telling me, cos he was a bit of an entrepreneur sort of a bugger. And he said, 'Where there's shit, there's money, boy.' So, uh` So that's what I did. I got up, and I bloody got me sketchpad out and started doing some drawings and bits and pieces like that. Um, the next day at the woolshed, I took some measurements and bits and pieces, um, and then I went to a local engineer in Feilding and, um, had a talk with him and, 'Can we do this?' And, 'We can do anything.' Anyway, so nobody was doing` other than with a vacuum unit in the past, nobody had come up with a conveyor-belt type scenario. The main issue with the shearing conditions and the build-up of the manure underneath is the ammonia build-up. When the product builds up to the stage where it is filling the shed overnight, the shearers come in the next morning, and the poor buggers have got their eyes, you know, running, and, uh, they're very` and the sheep have been in there suffering the same thing overnight as well. Um, and there's word of it, you know, with the new OSH regulations of safety in the workplace, um, that has to be reduced and addressed. So that's where we've really come into our own. I think any employer would be able to tell ya that either staff will either make you or break you. It's certainly a learning curve. I'm grateful for my, uh, military background. I was a section commander in infantry with 5 Battalion. So, you had to had a certain level of PR skills to relate to different walks of life, you know, young soldiers coming through. This is a lot the same. Uh, we're away from home, we're with each other day in, day out. We see more of each other than we do our families. For some of the guys coming through, if they can't cut it, they can't cut it. Cabin fever, I guess you could call it. Seeing the same face` When do you turn off? You know, you're working together all day and then you're trying to relax again at night. Um, yeah, it's` it's hard. It's been hard on the boys. Scotty's Contractors has become fairly infamous around parts of the Wairarapa for being underneath woolsheds and doing the jobs that no one wants to do, cleaning out the sheep shit and cleaning out yards. So, yeah, there's a few guys I know that have used them and said that he does a really good job. When that sheep shit sits under the shed for a long time, it's the ammonia smell which, um, the shearers don't like that much. Uh, we don't like it that much. Um, and then also that, uh` the breakdown of the urine and sheep shit will rot the posts out as well. Uh, and then in the yards ` the yards have built up over time. Obviously, sheep dragging mud in and whatnot and, uh, just getting those yards level and lowered out and getting any drainage back working again. At the moment, the end product gets dumped to waste, uh, which is really unfortunate. As far as an organic product, we've had it sent away to Hill Laboratories and had it all tested, and as far as organics go, it's the best stuff you can get. The volumes that we extract from under a shed, we average 75 ton, and we'll do that in about two, two and a half days. The shed that we finished yesterday, 130 ton came out of there. It took us, uh, four and a half days. Access is the key to that side of things as to how fast we can get it out. But, yeah, I think it's a lost opportunity as far as the manure goes. I hear stories of them importing chook manure from offshore and all the different weed and seed that's come in with that. It's a shame. It's a real shame, but, uh, we've made investigations into trying to do something with it, cos we see it as a lost opportunity. We were approached by Tui Garden Products at one stage to supply, but, um, the product itself is too wet, and the cost of logistics of getting it from way out in the back of the booay, um, which can be up to four hours from town, um, to then getting it on to whatever other form of, uh, logistics you have in place to, uh, get it to a process plant, it just kills it. Absolutely kills it. Um, so that side of it has been disappointing. We'll return soon to speak with a third-generation pie-maker at Maketu Pies. 1 Are you sure it's OK if I get a ride? Yeah, yeah. Dad said it's fine. I'm putting on some music. OK. BOTH CHUCKLE, CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS Dad! OK, I'm gonna change it. Sorry, but... Yeah. OK. Ooh yeah. Yeah. Turn it up. DUB MUSIC PLAYS, PHONE PINGS Hey, the others wanna hang out. Um... Hey! BOTH LAUGH ALL: # It's time to cut and run. It's time to... TYRES SCREECH # It's time to cut and run. It's time to cut and run. # Oh my God. Get off! Yeah! It's so obvious. So wasted. TRUCK HORN BLARES, GIRLS SCREAM, LAUGH (LAUGHS) TV BEEPS I'll probably drop Libby home after dance so she doesn't have to walk home in the dark. Thanks, Dad. I'll be home a little bit after 10, not too late. I love you guys. Yeah, all good, love. 1 'RURAL DELIVERY' THEME Hello again. Maketu Pies has been in business for over 30 years. They describe themselves as a pastry manufacturer, producing anything from savouries to full-scale family pies made with local ingredients. As general manager James Wilson explains, it all began very small. My grandparents owned the general store here in Maketu and saw potential for more, so then they decided to build a IGA Super Saver. Back in those days, we didn't get many deliveries here. People couldn't just go into town like they could do now. And so they would sell everything from fresh meat to grocery items right through to fresh vegetables. And, um, then my nana started making pies, cos she couldn't get a delivery. So started making pies in the back of the shop, at home, different places and started selling them here in the IGA. Dad thought it was quite a good idea, cos people started wanting them, and, um, the shop opened up next door to the IGA, which now comprises our oven room, and, um, started making them, and that just started to grow. We produce around about 20,000 to 25,000 units per day now and ship to over 600 customers throughout NZ. We have distributors in Australia. We've expanded into a larger scale but still a medium-sized business. In terms of the volume of pies in NZ, we probably produce around about five million comparative to the 65 million that are sold throughout the whole country. You know, we love our meat in this country, we love our dairy products in this country, so you combine all those things into one parcel, I think, and you've got a perfect combination. We run a fresh operation here, so most of our pies, 98% of them, are all fresh. We don't` We don't do frozen. So challenges around keeping that distribution and speed to market is always a challenge. Um, but as I say, we've got a very good partner with Big Chill to do that work for us. Um, and some other challenges in the market is just it's competition. There's so much of it. You know, there's so many people` so many pies, cos, as you see, there's 65 million; everyone wants a slice of the pie, I guess, so... But keeping` keeping your product consistent and good quality does help that. Our process, well, starts with pastry, of course. Gotta have, you know, good quality pastry. Then fillings, obviously. Good quality meat we buy from a local butcher, and most of our greens we source locally, of course, as much as we possibly can. We overnight rest our pastry. We then come through to a pie-line operation, and the pie line assembles the pie, effectively. Goes through to our oven room, bake it, cool it, package it, ship it. As well as that, we've got our meat cooking as well. Make it today, it's going to be baked within 20 minutes of being made, it's gonna be cooled within so many hours, and then it's gonna be packaged and then out the door within two days, three days. Food safety's a massive part of our business. We spend a lot of time, energy and money investing in making sure we've got good quality, uh, safe systems in place, robust systems, because, you know, food safety is so important with any manufacturing system these days. We pride ourselves on our pastry, and a lot of people say, you know, our pastry is what makes our pies so special. And that's simply because we just have good quality vats, good quality flour. We make it nice and light and flaky, and the best part of our pie is our pastry. We make a few tweaks in our fillings to give them that special extra, but, to be honest, it's all pretty basic stuff that you can buy from a supermarket shelf. There's nothing weird and wonderful going on the background. It's all pretty` Salt and pepper is a big part of business. We've got about 30 flavours of pies that we produce ` right from good old classic mince. Mince and cheese, of course, is the big number-one seller. And we've also have a range of gourmets. You know, we do a beef and blue cheese, where we use Kikorangi blue cheese. We do seafood mornay with hoki and shrimps and scallops. Some of our biggest sellers are our smoked fish and our mussel. You know, smoked fish is a very popular pie in NZ, and mussel's very unique to us as a manufacturer. We still make some products that, you know, don't sell huge volumes but are very nostalgic to us. So, steak and kidney pie. You know, it doesn't` it's not a huge seller for us, but we've got a lot of people who follow it and love it, so we still make it. There's a real push towards more of a gourmet product range these days, and I think you're seeing that more and more in the market, and that's why we do develop a lot more gourmet flavours ` probably more than we've ever done. So we're all constantly looking at new flavours, development of what we can do, products, ranges, all sorts. We're always reviewing our product. We're always looking at it, tasting it, testing it and making sure it's still performing. Mum and Dad make all our recipes for us and still do our development work. Um, and that's starting from scratch, you know. If we come up with a recipe or an idea, they then go away and make it up and develop it in our home, and just` we taste it, we go through the process of it, and then we determine, 'Yes, that's good.' Then we bring it into the production and do a full-scale production of it and roll it out to our customers. Um, but it's really just back to Mum and Dad, you know? It's how it's been done for the last 34 years and how it's gonna be done for the foreseeable future as well. Maketu, it's actually really central in terms of its location in NZ. You know, we're only two and a half, three hours from Auckland. We're near the Central Plateau, and you look at the triangle of the population of NZ, it's, you know, go between Tauranga, Hamilton and Auckland, a lot of people live in that area. But we're still pretty close to Wellington, and we have elected to stay here because we pride ourselves on being local, we pride ourselves on employing local staff, and we love this place. You know, I've grown up here. Mum and Dad live here still. It's got a place in our heart, and we don't wanna leave it, and I think Maketu Pies out of Maketu doesn't quite ring a bell, so I think we want to stay here as long as we possibly can. I think the future of the business is keeping consistent, keeping our brand at the level it is and just keep pushing that brand through. And, um, you know, if we` Growth is always good, um, but consistency and keeping it` keeping it profitable is more` is also important. For more information on these and other stories we've covered, feel free to visit our website, which you can get to via tvnz.co.nz If you've missed an episode, you can watch it on TVNZ On Demand using the keyword 'Rural Delivery'. We learn about a sustainable farming fund project on the impact of effluent nutrients supplied to peat soils in Waikato. We catch up with Shane and June Birchall and find out about progress they've made since 2008 in mitigating nutrient losses from their Bay of Plenty farm. And we visit a macadamia operation that's now set to produce the health-giving nuts for the next 100 years. Thanks for joining us today. We hope to see you again next time. RELAXED, UPBEAT MUSIC Captions by Virginia Philp. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 (BARKS)