Native planting and co-benefits workshop

Motueka Catchment Collective Biodiversity and Restoration group invites you to a planting workshop held at Mahakruna farm organised by NZ Landcare Trust. This includes a walk around a successful, well established native planting, of 50,000 native plants which is ongoing. These have been managed both conventionally and, in some places, organically.

The workshop is being held at Mahakaruna Farm, near Ngātīmoti. It is a 75 ha organic farm, which is still being developed. It is owned by Gary and Meg Hirsberg. Gary co-founded Stonyfield Farm, the world's largest organic yoghurt brand and champions organic production around the world. Their journey on this property has involved BioGro organic certification, native reforestation (organic and non-organic), and infrastructure development. The farm is in the process of establishing certified organic herb and vegetable market gardens, fruit, nuts and olives, an heirloom apple orchard, livestock and honey. The centre combines organics and entrepreneurship and will eventually feature several NZ-owned organic micro-enterprises. The native plantings, practical demonstration of planting and native nursery, will be the focus of this event.

There also will be a talk via zoom by Brad Howlett from Plant and Food. He will be reporting on a substantive project which a SFFF 5-year project (began in 2021) which is supported by most farming organisationst. The project seeks to find optimal mix of native plant species, planting areas, and planting landscapes to maximise the number of insects providing pollination and predation behaviour without creating refuges for insect pests. He will talk about designing native plantings that might best optimise insect populations for pollination for vegetable growers, pastoral farmers (clover pollination, crops) and horticulture (kiwifruit, apples) and for lifestylers. He will present his latest results on which natives promote most pollinating insects and beneficial predator insects And how can a native planting be best designed to achieve these outcomes. This is also a great opportunity to give valuable feedback direct to Brad about key pest insects that are an issue for your farming enterprise and where a lack of pollinating insects are causing an issue. This will help him to design his specific native plantings that support beneficial insects while limiting key pests.