One of Australia’s key wholesale vegetable seedling nurseries has recognised the growing demand for organic produce. Over the past six months, the Boomaroo Nurseries team has worked hard to establish an organic offering for its core crop categories, to be grown at its Victorian and Queensland sites.

Organic fresh produce production in Australia has gone from strength to strength in recent years, spurred by an increased consumer awareness of its impact on the environment, as well as their pursuit of a healthier lifestyle and diet. This has seen an increase in industry revenue of 18.4 per cent over the past five-years.

There has also been a marked increase in growers producing organically or introducing organic lines to their existing product offering to consumers.

To meet the demand for Certified Organic vegetable seedlings, Boomaroo Nurseries is excited to announce that it has now obtained full Organic Certification for commercial seedling production at its Lara and Southbrook sites. This range will be known as Boomaroo Organics.

Here’s a little of what will be on offer, and the journey Boomaroo took to get here.

Product range

More than 250 seedling trials have been conducted to date across the Lara and Southbrook facilities, with the final round of Winter trials in Lara currently nearing completion.

With trials achieving strong results, all core crop categories offered as part of the operation’s conventionally-grown seedling range will also be offered in its organic seedling range. These include: iceberg lettuce; coloured lettuce; cos lettuce; broccoli; cauliflower; cabbage; celery; silverbeet; tomatoes; leeks; and onions.

Over 250 Organic trials have been conducted over a 12 month period to determine the best combination of Organic inputs for year-round performance.

Timing

The Southbrook nursery is up and running, and ready to receive orders for organic seedlings now.

Meanwhile, Boomaroo’s Lara nursery is also ready to take Organics orders, with first deliveries on-farm anticipated in late December 2020.

Journey to organic

Boomaroo’s journey to Organic Certification has been meticulous and uncompromising, involving all aspects of its operations from its growing and production teams, product sourcing and master planning to quality assurance (QA) and administration to achieve a detailed understanding and full compliance with the National Standard for Organic and Bio-dynamic Produce. So, what did this journey involve?

Site planning

Comprehensive site assessments and independent audits have been conducted at the Lara and Southbrook sites and Organic Management Plans prepared to ensure segregation between organic from conventionally-grown crops is always maintained, from sowing to seedling dispatch. Additionally, the operation has invested in facility upgrades to further mitigate any cross-contamination risks, including dedicated production equipment, such as watering gantries, and separate storage facilities for organic inputs.

Sourcing of organic inputs

The operation has spent the last 12 months developing partnerships with industry-respected and Certified Organic suppliers of the growing inputs needed to produce strong, healthy and farm-ready organic vegetable seedlings, including growing media, plant nutrition, pest and disease control and seed.

Seedling trials

An extensive program of organic seedling trials is nearing completion, with final winter trials now underway and exceptional results recorded to date. Trials across all crop categories have been conducted in duplicate to assess the performance of a wide range of organic input combinations, and progressively over a 12-month period, to ensure applications are tailored for optimum year-round results.

Compliance

In parallel to the above, stringent organic processes, procedures and protocols have been documented as part of the operation’s Quality Management System, providing further validation and confidence to its customers that Organic Certification requirements and their high-quality expectations are met.

Lara Organic Grower Team Lead, Nik Manchev, inspecting trial progress.

Find out more

To register your interest or enquire about further crops that may be incorporated into the Boomaroo Organics range, please contact organics@boomaroo.com.

For further information, please click here. Alternatively, contact your Boomaroo Territory Manager.

Cover image: Winter Organic bunching onion trials exhibiting promising results.

This article features in the spring 2020 edition of Vegetables Australia. Click here to read the full publication.