A rollercoaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Waikato Regional Council, Thames-Coromandel District Council and Forest & Bird have released 400 beetles to combat a weed in New Zealand’s oldest arboretum.
The beetles have been specially bred by Landcare Research to tackle tradescantia – aka ‘wandering willie’ – in the William Hall Arboretum and Walk at Thames.
The beetles were released last month by the regional council’s pest plant officer Benson Lockhart, staff from Thames-Coromandel District Council and Forest & Bird, and community volunteers.
“We’ve released three different types of beetle, each one attacking different parts of the plant – the leaf, stem and tip,” says Lockhart.
“These beetles have a big job, because tradescantia is thick in the arboretum.”
Landcare Research supplied 200 tradescantia tip beetles and 100 tradescantia stem beetles for release.
“What’s exciting is that I was able to harvest about 100 leaf beetles from a site in Hahei where they’ve been doing great work in recent years to combat the tradescantia problem there,” he says.
Tradescantia smothers the ground, preventing native tree regeneration. The plant is also a nuisance for home gardeners and causes allergic responses in dogs. It is so widespread in NZ that manual or chemical control on a large scale is not feasible.
“That’s where biological control comes in,” says Lockhart. “It uses a living organism to control another, very successful in NZ since the 1920s to safely control different weeds.”
The tradescantia beetles are expected to support pest plant control work now done by TCDC, Forest & Bird and community groups in the arboretum.
Ken Clark, from Forest & Bird in Thames, and his weekly working bee group work on the weeds in the arboretum.
At Hahei, where the beetles are well established and working together, tradescantia is knocked back and karaka seedlings are growing.
“The beetles have had time to get established at Hahei and it’s awesome to see some good results. We’re hoping to see the same here at the arboretum,” says Lockhart.
Landcare Research does rigorous testing to ensure biocontrol agents are host-specific in NZ conditions.
The tradescantia beetles have been approved since 2011.
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.
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