NGI Updates

The all new Masterclass in Horticultural Business course has kicked off and the nursery industry is front and centre with a number of industry representatives hitting the books, keen to build their business skillset.

Around 30 industry-minded recipients will spend the next eight months gaining practical management and leadership skills targeted to the horticultural industry, enabling them to take their business and career to the next level.

The course combines the expertise of what is currently ranked the world’s number one university in agriculture and forestry, the Wageningen Research Academy in the Netherlands, with New Zealand’s specialist land-based university, Lincoln, as well as the leading Australian horticulture university, the University of Tasmania.

Several masterclass recipients were selected from within the nursery industry, Sonja Cameron from Cameron’s Nursery in New South Wales, James Edge from Humphris Nursery in Victoria and Heather Huxley from Horticultural and Landscape Supplies in Tasmania.

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Category name: Soft scales

Importance: Minor

Similar to: Other wax scales

Description: Egg: Red, small, oval, laid in clumps under female scale body. Immatures: Crawlers pink and mobile. When they settle they lose their legs and secrete a white, waxy covering that later turns pink, resemble adult female. Adult: Female has a pink to red hard wax covering, which is smooth and globular in shape. There are two lobes on either side of the scale with a depression on top. Male tiny, winged and rarely seen.

Damage:
Occurs mainly along the midribs of leaves and on young twigs. Feeding reduces plant vigour. Protected and tended by ants. Produces honeydew, encouraging sooty mould growth, which further reduces plant vigour.

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Additional on-farm support is now available to production nurseries, greenlife markets and growing media manufacturers, with Nursery & Garden Industry Australia (NGIA) appointing Tony Filippi to the new role of Biosecurity Certification Officer for the industry.

Mr Filippi starts the role on 20 March 2017, but will also attend the NGIA BioSecure HACCP Forum being held on 16 March at Boomaroo Nursery, south-west of Melbourne.

He brings extensive horticultural experience at a technical level, in overseeing production and compliance management systems, and providing grower extension services.

The role has been created to assist growers with on-farm biosecurity education, training, and system auditing, and to provide industry relevant information to support their biosecurity objectives. More

Healthy trees improve the liveability of urban landscapes and improve community wellbeing, and research is helping to ensure the quality of newly planted trees so they have a long and productive life.

The project Evaluation of nursery tree stock balance parameters (NY15001) involves collecting measurements from nurseries around the country to provide data backing for an industry standard known as AS2303: 2015 Tree Stock for Landscape Use.

The aim is to ensure the standard effectively covers the performance of trees across a variety of climatic conditions, species, container sizes and nursery practices, to provide certainty of quality back to the customer.

The work is being conducted by Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, funded by Horticulture Innovation Australia using the research and development nursery levy and funds from the Australian Government. More