Apple scientist wins top award

Hawke's Bay Plant & Food scientist Ben van Hooijdonk will be travelling to Florida at the end of the month to collect an American Society of Horticultural Science award for Outstanding Fruit Publication Award for papers published in 2011.

He is the first author of a paper on dwarf apple root stocks and modestly said: "They must have thought it was okay - I suppose.

"We have used dwarf root stocks throughout Hawke's Bay and the world, but we still don't know how they work."

Among Dr van Hooijdonk's other awards was the Miklos Faust Travel Award he was presented with in 2010, for upcoming young scientists from around the world. He travelled to the International Society of Horticultural Science Conference in Portugal where he received his award and presented his work on Envy apples.

In March he featured in Hawke's Bay Today with fellow Plant & Food scientists about their mission to revolutionise apple production through greater use of sunlight.

Proud mother Janet van Hooijdonk said although her son was an average student at Karamu High School he left with a love of horticulture, taking up a horticultural cadetship.

"When he was 22 he decided to go to university and study applied science in horticulture," she said.

"He soon realised he needed chemistry and physics, which he did not take at school, and maths - a subject in which he had failed. It was a daunting road. He nearly gave up but he worked on and on and on until he achieved his PhD."