Manuka Plantation Programme

[Music] being carbon compliant and the carbon sequestration is really important for New Zealand primarily manuka Ezzor is a nursery crop for native forests so we're it's planted now there's often areas where it's been removed and those are erosion prone areas there are also areas of Forestry which are not productive which are being felled they won't be replanted that can go back into Monica thereby providing a new tree crop for our native forests the the manuka plantation we see it fitting in the best land use model whereby agricultural properties can often plant steep land or riparian waterways where the land is currently under utilized and manuka is a very good option we've looked at it when we've come and looked at the land type that we've been given and then you work out which land types that's - land use and so this is isn't going to suit dairy heifers or any livestock so we planted in trees and we retire the Manuka came along because we had some side lengths with deer damage on the men we are looking for a species and we we have kiwi fruit we know about these the flowering of them is good for bees we're a trial site so we're we're insulated in terms of other species so that all worked and it was a pretty easy to do really so this site was where we had when we arrived on this property we had a lot of deer damage and we've removed the deer fence and you can still see the deer damage where it's basically eroded all the topsoil and lifts us with a bit of a myth so what do you do with this type of land and so that's when trees become an option and then it's about choosing which species to use and on this site we decided on Monica because it's shorter and it won't shade as much and we like the flowering angle from for bees and and it also gives us a little bit of rental income so it fitted with the philosophy to be environmentally sustainable you have to be economically sustainable the convenor program is easy because it was and we're looking at a species to plant on the site and talking to the guys and convey to we started talking about Monica and looking for a trial site and this fits perfectly it started with this property back 25 years or more ago back in the late 80s and it's a property that's about sixteen hundred and seventy hectares of which probably fifteen hundred is either beer land or Monica and so there will be about maybe 900 hectares planted but it's country that's suitable pretty much for planting Monica it's not really a very good family and a [Music] the whole a pre industry or honey industry is expanding really rapidly there's been a significant growth in the number of beekeepers and of course those people that provide a labor force for them but once we get into plantation work that and there are a number of people doing this but it does employ vast numbers of planting gangs there's land preparation a lot of the area is quite inaccessible so there's a lot of helicopter work going into it and of course downstream with more availability of product you've got extraction facilities you got packing facilities such as conveners and of course all of logistics and export services go along with it the plantations the end of a 10-year journey but we're also participating in programs sustainability programs such as Theresa count so there is a lot of opportunity here to two particular landscape and to enhance our environment [Music]

Channel: Comvita Ltd

Views: 29,804

Keywords: Manuka, Sustainability

Id: GIlDj-IXb6w

Length: 4min 18sec (258 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2016