Our LBT Horticulture Team of Vanessa Nicholson, Merryn Broderson supported by GM Hamish Davidson & Ops Manager Bob Pearce hosted a contingent of Korean Teachers for a practical insight into what we teach on our Horticulture Courses in NZ.
The group travelled under the TERRAMI (Korea Rural & Territorial Development Institute) Overseas Agriculture Training Project. The programme “Agricultural High School Teachers Training in New Zealand was instigated to offer an insight into horticulture and farming practices in New Zealand. This experience therefore providing the group with some good hands-on training that they could take back to Korea to share with their own students.
The morning session was hosted by Gavin Scott a well-known, self-taught botanist. Gavin runs his own native tree nursery in Halcombe near Fielding. Gavin led a major restoration project at Kitchener Park (near-by) in 1991 and worked intensively on saving rare native plant species for 29 years. Gavin has been working on building His own native walkway on his property and had a lot of different eco-sourced species he was growing.
Vanessa and Merryn covered propagation of some native plant material and seed collected from Gavin’s property and explained why it was so important to eco-source native seed. The weather wasn’t the best and rain set-in, so we were grateful for the shelter of Gavin’s potting shed to get out of the weather! There were some great Q&A sessions with the group interpreter and a BBQ lunch was supplied and cooked by Hamish and Bob at the Scott’s property before heading across to Piwakawaka Farm up the Whanganui River.
Piwakawaka Farm is a 72Ha regenerative farm situated in Papaiti 13Km up the Whanganui River. Piwakawaka Farm run a Native Plant Nursery where they eco-source native seed and grow plants to order for waterway, riparian, coastal and forest restoration. They also have a substantial orchard and Maara Kai where food crops are grown under their Koha Kai Initiative, the fruit and vegetables are donated to those in need in the Whanganui Community. The Farm is also a training base and runs various workshops on native plant propagation, well-being retreats, one and two day workshops on growing kai. They are a passionate team and well qualified and experienced to share their knowledge.
Cameron Ryan hosted us, and our Korean visitors gained some excellent insight into native reforestation projects and NZ Native plants in general. The group put down their umbrella’s and got their hands dirty and helped plant a number of Native trees and shrubs in a semi-wetland area.
Thanks to our partners Gavin Scott Nursery and Piwakawaka Farm for helping us host our visitors, it was a great opportunity to showcase our LBT Horticulture Courses.
