On The Up: Katikati orchard thrives with natural pest control

Dave Guy-Taylor on his Tanners Point Rd property, Flame Lily Orchard. Photo / Debbie Griffiths

It’s with a certain quiet satisfaction that Dave Guy-Taylor shares feedback from a customer who described products from Flame Lily Orchard as “the best I’ve ever tasted”.

“They’re spray-free and people just love that,” he said. “They’re hand-picked at exactly the right time, they’re graded and packed by us and go straight into the chiller. My blueberries will last three weeks or more in the fridge and the taste is the difference.”

Eight years after moving from Auckland to the Tanner’s Point Rd property north of Katikati, the orchardist is buoyed by compliments that showed his focus on quality and natural pest control is paying off.

“We bring in a mite that eats thrips as well as the eggs. It’s one of the ways we control pests biologically as much as possible,” he said, before pointing out an elderberry bush planted near the tidy rows of blueberries. “There’s a tiny wasp that loves elderberries. They live there and nail any caterpillars that we have within the crop.”

Dave Guy-Taylor walks the blueberry rows with Roxy the dog. Photo / Debbie Griffiths

It’s been a life of extreme changes for Zambia-born Guy-Taylor, whose family moved to neighbouring Zimbabwe when he was 5 years old.

“My uncle had a 5000-acre [2020ha] cattle farm in Zimbabwe and I’d spend holidays there,” he said. “Then he decided to do a coffee seedling nursery and that was around the time I went to university. They got a disease which meant he couldn’t sell them, so he planted them, and I went back in my vacations and helped him. I finished uni with a Bachelor of Science in agriculture and spent two years with him growing coffee.”

Guy-Taylor made a move into office-based work, first accounting, then programming. After moving to New Zealand, he worked for Firth in Auckland for 18 years as a business systems analyst before he felt the need to be working outside again.

Beneath the canopy of Dave Guy-Taylor’s green Hayward kiwifruit. Photo / Debbie Griffiths

“My brother-in-law was here managing kiwifruit orchards, including this one, and the owners wanted to sell and retire. I jumped in and bought the three hectares that includes half a hectare of avocados and a canopy hectare of green Hayward kiwifruit,” Guy-Taylor says.

“I worked part-time for Firth from home for the first six months, but I found myself working into the night trying to keep up with everything.”

With his full focus on the orchard, he removed most of the feijoa and replaced it with blueberries.

“The orchard has its own weird microclimate, so fruit does particularly well here. It’s a little basin that gets really cold and really hot,” he said.

“I particularly like growing crops that stay in the ground for years, I’m not into annual cropping. I grew coffee previously and now I have blueberries, avocados, kiwifruit and oranges. They’re all crops that you can visibly see the response that your management and input into them has, so when they’re looking a bit off the challenge is getting them back to being happy and healthy again.”

Dave Guy-Taylor on his Tanners Point Rd property, Flame Lily Orchard. Photo / Debbie Griffiths

Guy-Taylor rarely suffered winter ills and chills, which he credited to having quality fruit “on tap”, and he also thrived on the camaraderie of orchard workers, fellow market stall holders, and customers.

“I can’t do it on my own,” he said. “It’s the people I work with that make it so good. Some have come up with good suggestions about how to do things differently and more efficiently. The people side of the job is definitely something I particularly enjoy.”

The ultimate pay-off to the year-round work and early mornings before market days was simply living with his wife in an “awesome part of the country”.

“We love sitting on our deck enjoying the views of the Kaimai Range,” he said.

“Tanners Point itself is magical. Everyone’s really friendly and most support my orchard by buying from the roadside stall.

“I’d say 75% of our gate sales are from people who live down the road. It’s a great little community.”