Vegetable Industry changes over the 50 years since our year of graduation (1971) - what have been the learnings?

After 45 or so years involved in horticulture, I thought it was time to assemble some of my experiences to convey some of my learnings about horticultural science and practice for the benefit of future professionals.

The most important learnings from the huge changes I have observed over my decades in the vegetable industry - in the private, government and educational sectors - can be distilled to just two:

1) Rapid adoption. The intensive horticultural industries adopt new technology very quickly, and

2) Rapid change demands continuous training. It is vital that professionals in horticulture are provided with specialist training after attaining their primary degree. Also, ongoing mentoring of young professionals is the key to maintaining employment of the best talent in this very demanding commercial sphere.

A comparison of some of the major changes in vegetable production systems from the 1970s to the 2020s is provided in Table 1 below.

Several examples are described in more detail here.

The introduction of the SpeedlingTM growing system from Florida of cell-grown soil-less transplants by Queensland DPI extension staff in the Lockyer Valley and a grower in Toowoomba in the mid-1970s changed the industry throughout Australia. Commercial specialist seedling nurseries set up quickly nationally, with seed companies communicating directly with them after agreeing with the grower their chosen variety programme for the season. The challenge was how to communicate the ‘new’ production system to traditional vegetable growers.

The Vegetable Crops Department from University of Florida in Gainesville had research and extension staff working with SpeedlingTM  and the Florida fresh market tomato industry initially produced an excellent production guide. The Queensland industry (growers, government R & D, industry body COD, commercial sector and Queensland Agricultural College (QAC) all worked in cooperation to adopt the Florida experience to Queensland conditions.

After moving from NSW, this multi-sector cooperation was new to me. QAC, in addition, had a dedicated 30-hectare horticultural farm on the banks of the Lockyer Creek with fertile alluvial soil adjacent to the CSIRO research farm on the eastern side and the Gatton DPI research farm on the western side. This facility over the next decade was renowned for hosting grower field days highlighting new technology. Adoption was also assisted by Sydney hosting the International Horticultural Congress in August 1978, with research and extension specialists from Florida attending and visiting Queensland.

The College hosted biennial horticultural field days in late autumn or early spring each year which permitted all sectors of the industry to display live demonstrations of such innovations as the cell-grown seedling system.

The staff from all relevant departments had the opportunity to work closely with industry needs and display solutions on the field section adjoining the main campus.

Typical cell-grown lettuce seedlings in soilless media of peat and vermiculite.

SpeedlingTM tray with 198 individual cells/tray

Soon after the introduction of the SpeedlingTM system was the introduction of the Israel system of trickle/drip irrigation, fertigation and plastic mulch for field-grown tomatoes, capsicum, egg plant and all melons (watermelons, rock melons and honey dew). This permitted balanced crop nutrition and irrigation from crop establishment, through root development, early vegetative growth, flowering, and fruiting, which was fundamental to achieving high quality marketable yields.

The key learning here was that, supporting this technology was crop-sap testing and leaf testing, specialist agronomists either as fulltime staff or consultants, fertilizer schedules for determinate and indeterminate varieties and how many crop protection chemicals could be applied through the irrigation system. Commercial growers who had previously grown bare-rooted seedlings and those who had used furrow or overhead sprinklers for irrigation and solid NPK fertilizer, had to change to this new system due to the numerous advantages of trickle/drip irrigation:

● Water is used at maximum optimum level; plants are grown with up to 70% less water compared to sprinkler/furrow irrigation.

● Water is applied locally, which reduces leaching and minimises fertilizer/nutrients loss.

● Under plastic ground cover, weed pressure is reduced.

● Crop yield is maximised.

● Fertilizers are used with high efficiency.

● Over-use of fertilizer is avoided.

● No soil erosion

● Crops can be grown with poorer quality water.

● Foliar diseases are reduced.

The adoption of the Israeli system to Australian growing conditions and climate has been due to local agronomists’ thorough understanding of crop physiology, soil water and nutrition, and the ability of reacting to sap and leaf levels in the plant immediately via fertigation (the supply of nutrients in irrigation water). Much of this knowledge is acquired after a primary tertiary degree, again illustrating the need for continuing education on the job.

The area of crop scouting was first used in the cotton industry, especially when the older types of insecticide became ineffective in controlling the major cotton pests. At the same time, the vegetable industry experienced similar problems with insect pests in brassica crops, tomatoes, and sweet-corn crops. Growers employed their own scouts or consultants who are now replacing the previously used DPI/DofAg government extension officer, who operated in the early years after our graduation, but who now, however, are non-existent. The learning here is that as our industry becomes technically more complex, agronomists will have opportunities in the commercial sector immediately after graduating, compared to the 1970s when they were mentored as trainee agronomists in government agencies before being appointed as district horticultural agronomists.

All the above changes to our industry have taken place over the last 50 years, along with the relocation of our industry away from the capital cities, e.g. Redland Bay near Brisbane have gone north to Bundaberg, Sydney basin growers have moved from Sydney to Cowra/MIA, Virginia north Adelaide have moved to Riverland, Perth growers around Wanneroo have moved further north to Gin Gin or south to Mandurah and the Bunbury area.

Melbourne growers around Werribee and the sand belt area around Rosebud are still growing there, but the urban spread will eventually force them to move into regional Victoria. This relocation will see an increasing demand for skilled practical agronomists, technically trained staff for the Agricultural reseller industry, soil scientists for fertilizer and the irrigation industry, plant breeders for the specialist vegetable seed industry, specialists in entomology, microbiology, plant pathologists for the crop protection side and plant physiologists for the specialist protective cropping sector that looks at glasshouse and greenhouse production as a risk-management strategy, especially for the QSR and supermarket chains.

Having graduated from a city-based university and then taught at QAC when it was a College of Advanced Education (CAE), I must admit that lecturing degree students at QAC, with a 30-hectare intensive horticultural farm within walking distance of the main campus, provided an excellent field laboratory second to none.

In second year, you could demonstrate ‘Principles of Agronomy 1’, in third year Vegetable Agronomy 2 and Fruit Production 2 with annual crops grown by the students and perennial crops observed over semesters 5 and 6. Students then had access to field facilities for their fourth-year field thesis. In addition to the horticulture staff, students had access to Agricultural Engineering staff, Plant Protection staff, Soil Science staff and exposure to Horticultural industry representatives that had trials on the field station. When the first students began their studies in 1897 at QAC, the college motto was Science with Practice, a motto remembered fondly by all who graduated from Gatton.

Having grown up on a Central Coast dairy farm, growing winter vegetables on frost-free high country and having a citrus orchard, I certainly benefited from my five years at Sydney University, undertaking an Agricultural Science degree. In addition, I grew vegetables as my Junior Famers project. All of this gave me a practical background. The agricultural science topics I studied in many cases I could take back to the family farm, with Prof Hector Geddes example of a turkey’s nest dam being a major addition to our farm.

I found the intensive vegetable industry extremely challenging, as the time from seeding to commercial harvest is very short, leaving no time for ‘stress’ in crop growth and development. A good example is baby leaf spinach which, in mid-summer, can be less than a month available for seeding 6-9 million seeds/ha and harvesting 7.5-9.0 tonnes/ha of product. There is no room for error!

As Neil Black reflected in his book, teaching horticulture at Ryde TAFE, our degree had a strong agricultural bias. If we are going to educate students with a tertiary qualification in horticulture in the future, subjects must have relevance to the intensive aspects especially plant nutrition, irrigation scheduling, plant physiology (influence of day length, solar radiation, temperature, altitude on growth and development, yield and food quality). Horticulture requires higher management skills and higher human involvement to grow high-yielding and high-quality produce, and that certainly involves trained people with great observational skills in spotting what is stressing plants and applying corrective treatments promptly0. This requires regular crop inspections (pests, nutrient status, irrigation scheduling, optimum harvest date), often twice per week during warm weather production.

I am concerned that some of our tertiary Agriculture courses are graduating students after three years with only one of those semesters spent on ‘industry placement’. I wonder: who is doing the mentoring of these young graduates in their early years in the industry?

Table 1. Comparison of aspects of various vegetable production systems from the 1970s to the 2020s (click image below for PDF version).