Taranaki Plants & People

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Research Pondering: Frost, Fungi, and the Future of Taranaki Ag 🌾
​Spending some time over in Victoria, Australia at the moment, and these crisp, frosty mornings are a sharp reminder of just how mild our Taranaki winters back home really are. But that comfortable climate comes with a hidden agricultural challenge.

​Without a hard winter touch of frost to knock things back, many of our local plants harbor active fungal spores right through the colder months.

​As we look to Venture Taranaki’s 'Branching Out' initiative to diversify our regional production, tackling this biosecurity and plant health puzzle is going to be crucial. If we want to successfully diversify, natural and organic fungicides are an incredibly interesting and necessary area of research.

​We are already seeing the groundwork being laid on the ground. Many local farmers and WITT students have reported fantastic anecdotal success using natural solutions like:

​Seaweed extracts for plant immunity and vitality

​Effective Microorganisms (EM) to dominate the microbial environment

​Trichoderma a beneficial fungus that acts as a natural biocontrol

​It makes me wonder: how do we formalize this?

​How do we take these grass roots success stories and back them with rigorous, localized trial data to support large scale diversification?

​I’d love to hear from local growers, researchers, and anyone at WITT or Venture Taranaki. What are your thoughts on building a formal research pipeline for organic biocontrols in the region? Let's chat over in Linkedin 👇

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