The Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA) Vegetable Research Facility has held a successful Open Day this week, with a good crowd arriving at the Forthside site on Wednesday 10 October to hear from speakers and see new practices in the field.

After an opening by Member for Braddon Adam Brooks MP, the crowded veg shed heard from Natalie Brown and Sally Darke about Children’s University, an exciting initiative that helps young Australians learn outside the classroom – including the strong delegation of primary school students who were in the audience on the day.

From there, it was on to matters of production, with Mark Boersma from TIA and Doris Blaesing from RMCG discussing how to manage risks on-farm, including the importance of soil health and the value of knowing the difference between good seed and bad seed.

Mark Kable from Harvest Moon also shared his on-farm experiences of improving soil health, such as the process of fixing their soil’s organic matter and pH, as well as the welcome impact that their change to controlled-traffic farming has delivered by halving the site’s production costs and halving their time working the ground.

With the ongoing presence of tomato potato psyllid (TPP) in Western Australia, the predominantly Tasmanian audience also heard first-hand about the impact that the TPP incursion had on growers through valuable insights from Darryl Smith – the first Australian grower to have TPP found on his property.

Darryl emphasised the importance of biosecurity, giving one simple message to all growers: “If you’re bringing something onto your property, make sure you know where it’s from and if it’s safe, because you’re the one that’s going to get hurt.”

AUSVEG Biosecurity Adviser Kevin Clayton-Greene dissected the lessons learnt from the response to the incursion and backed up the first-hand experiences shared by Darryl, and the session finished with a presentation from Remote Aviation Australia on becoming a licensing drone pilot.

After lunch, attendees headed out into the field for paddock walks to hear from researchers about a range of projects, including:

• Using integrated weed management in vegetable production (presented by Christine Fyfe from University of New England and funded by Hort Innovation)
• Biofumigation and cover crops in one of the world’s longest-running research trials (presented by Bernard Walker, TIA PhD Candidate)
• The impact of row spacing on processing pea production (presented by Mark Boersma from TIA and funded by Hort Innovation)

Finally, it was back to the veg shed to hear from the international guest speaker, Professor Fred Crowe from Oregon State University, discussing onion white rot.

We’ve posted a few photos from the day in the gallery below. This valuable field day was delivered by TIA in collaboration with the levy-funded VegNET Tasmania project, extending research in a practical format for growers, agronomists and other industry members.

This post appeared in the AUSVEG Weekly Update published 16 October 2018. Subscribe to the Update using our online form to receive the latest industry news in your inbox every week!