By Andrew Ashton. HEAD FOR ORGANICS: organic agricultural college student Talis Bosma, at an organic onion field crop trail in Hastings. PHOTO/SUPPLIED.
A new food crop trial being carried out in Hastings could end up boosting the region's exports - all year round.
Bostock New Zealand is hoping to capture "huge untapped export opportunities" for Southern Hemisphere organic onions through a crop trial on the Heretaunga Plains.
Bostock New Zealand's owner John Bostock said worldwide, the demand for organic onions is huge, especially in Europe where there is a major gap in supply before its domestic crop comes on the market.
"However, the challenge for us is to make it economically viable to grow and export organic onions from New Zealand so our international customers have a year-round supply of higher valued, premium quality, GM Free organic produce.
Mr Bostock said to help, the company had invested in the international expertise of Talis Bosma, a top student from the Netherlands, who is working alongside the experienced local team on a field trial of organic onions on 2.7ha leased from the Peacock family in Twyford, Hastings.
Along with successfully growing organic onions, Mr Bostock said the aim of the field trial, which would utilise the latest technology, growing systems and expertise out of Europe, was to transfer the knowledge gained across the company's conventional crops.
"This is all part of Bostock New Zealand's ongoing commitment to leading the world with improved, sustainable growing practices and protecting the environment, he said.
"The biggest challenge when growing onions is weed and pest control, which is why conventional growing methods rely so heavily on a spray regime to make it economical to export in large volumes.
"We're confident, through this trial, we will be able to reduce, if not eliminate, the high dependency sprays, he said.
Bostock New Zealand's growing manager Chris Zuiderwijk said it was critical to create a stale seedbed so the onions could grow weed free.
"We invested in a new state of the art weed flamer to burn off the existing weeds, then cultivated the top layer of the paddock using a new finger tine weeder to carefully remove any weed seeds.
"We planted the onions on October 13 and then did another round of flame weeding just before the plants came through the soil."
To combat onions' susceptibility to Downy mildew, Mr Zuiderwikj said a disease resistant seed had been sourced.
Depending on the growing season, the Thrips insect might be a problem, and that was all part of the trial.
"The crop's growing well and we plan to harvest in late February. We are confident the trial will be successful and are committed to turning it into a full scale export production next season."
Bostock New Zealand has also used the new technology on some of its squash to help with weed control and limiting spraying.
The company's apples are organic or in conversion to organic, along with Bostock's organic free range chickens. Many other crops are grown both organically and conventionally. It aims to have all crops grown 100 per cent organic in the future.
