North West Seed Potato Tour (Edition 14)

WE KNOW EASTER IS EARLIER THIS YEAR BUT WE STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S MARCH AND THAT RABBIT IS BUSY PREPARING HIS EGG DELIVERIES ALREADY!

This edition Kevin Langmaid has written our feature article, on our recent seed tour in the North West. We were all really impressed with what we saw this year, and if you’d like some further insight into how things are shaping up, be sure to read on.

We’ll also introduce you to our newest staff member Jason Richardson, and we have some lovely feedback from one of our customers that we can’t wait to share.

For these stories and more please read on. The team at Cherry Hill Coolstores

IN THIS ISSUE


Season Report	A Slice of Life with us at CHC	NW Potato Seed Tour	Easter Message

Read on for these great articles and much more…

SEASON REPORT

We’re all glad to move on from a wet and wild Winter, with longer  days and nicer weather forecast for Springtime.

Well, what a Summer of contrasts! From super dry … to super wet. How is everyone’s seed holding? Some areas have been affected by 18-20cm of rain. Further west has been less affected, with the Hagley and Northern Midlands region being the worst affected by soft rot. We don’t believe it will be an issue by harvest time – with any rot running it’s due course and disappearing, leaving good serviceable seed for harvesting. Talk to Cherry Hill about Easter arrangements closer to the date.

Seed tours:
All seed examined during our annual seed tours, was of exceptional quality. This is a huge credit to all seed growers – especially since this has been a very difficult and dry Summer.

There has been a frenzy of seed buying, driven by the recent wet weather events. In particular, seed grown in red soil, west of Devonport, has been highly sought after – and is now all gone (sold)!

Grey Soil and Fusarium: There has been a lot of blame put on grey soil for fusarium. Yes, the off coloured soil in the northern midlands does host high levels of fusarium – BUT it is a district thing, not a grey soil thing. For example – the off coloured soils at Mount Seymour or even at Westwood and Rosevale districts have very low instances of fusarium rot in their seed. Make sure you don’t discount good seed for the wrong reason. We have inspected some magnificent seed on grey soil this year. (Note: you can read an in depth review from Kevin Langmaid of our latest seed tour here).

At Cherry Hill Coolstores, we’ve had a busy Summer, cleaning and getting ready for the intake. We’re now very excited and ready to get going, with the first intake of seed scheduled for next week.

Best wishes, Andrew, Brenden and Pam, Cherry Hill Coolstores.

CHERRY HILL COOLSTORES SEED GUARANTEE

Our Seed Management Services. Cherry Hill Coolstores will guarantee our services on Seed Growers seed. If you buy someone else’s certified seed, which is presented to Cherry Hill in good condition, and it breaks down, we will replace our cutting and services at no charge.

This guarantee specifically refers to seed piece breakdown (i.e. rot), and refers to seed which is delivered directly to Cherry Hill Coolstores from the seed paddock for chemical application, coolstoring and cutting. In order for this guarantee to be valid, the Buyer must make claims within 24-hours of the seed leaving Cherry Hill Coolstores and before planting.

In order for this guarantee to be valid, the buyer must make claims with 24 hours of the seed leaving Cherry Hill and before planting.

View more about our guarantee here.

A SLICE OF LIFE AT CHERRY HILL – THREE CHEERS FOR “RICHO”

This edition, we caught up with our newest addition to the Cherry Hill family – Jason Richardson:

We’d like to introduce you to our newest member of the team – Jason Richardson. “Richo” is a local lad having grown up in East Devonport. He joined us in December last year as our Factory/Coolstore worker and is already showing promise to be a future foreman (look out Scotty)!

Jason’s background is in construction and, as a qualified solid plasterer and tiler has spent the past 25 years in this industry, prior to needing a change. 10 of these years were spent in Brisbane, until his daughter came along and the family decided it was time to return home.

Although agriculture is a totally different business from what he is used to, Jason is comfortable and confident in this new role. Now living in Wesley Vale, he is surrounded by country people and the way of life. His brother-in-law even grows spuds!

We’re currently keeping him busy with maintenance, checking and mending our 11,000 1 tonne boxes. But as the seasons’ change, so will Jason’s role – he’ll soon be responsible for unloading and storage, and whatever else Wayne and Scott throw his way.

Footy keeps Jason fit and takes up most of his spare time outside of work. It’s also how we met Jason – he’s President of the Wesley Vale Football club that our very own Brenden also plays for! Jason plays

either up forward or in the middle with Brenden by his side and admitted, “Brenden goes alright!”

There’s also a softer side to Jason, enjoying music and being a musician. When younger he wanted to be a ‘rock star’ and, along with his brother Scotty, played in a band called Magenta. Although from all reports this wasn’t such a ‘softer’ side, with hair down to their waist, Magenta preferred metal and rock! If they can find the time, Jason and Scott would like to put the band back together – we might even book them for this year’s Christmas party!

TESTIMONIAL … “AN EXCELLENT RELATIONSHIP”

“When Langworthy Cool Store ceased operations, on the recommendation of other growers whom had been using Cherry Hill, we moved our seed cutting and storage to this business.

In the first few years we fresh cut from block, with no major seed cutting or storage issues.

Later we have moved to pre-cut seed as recommended by Andrew and Brenden. They advised that this would give a more reliable product at planting too which has been proven without any question in our operation.

As a business that used contract machinery to plant our seed we have found that pre-cut seed is ideal, as it allows flexibility for when we can plant. We just take the seed out of storage just before planting and, because it is colder, it will sit better if weather becomes an issue.

As a small grower, we rely on Cherry Hill’s advice and since ‘grower to grower’ seed trade they have controlled all aspects of seed up until discharge from their facility. They recommend a Seed Line to purchase handle all cutting and storage and send one understandable invoice.

In the years of dealing with the Cherry Hill team, we have had an excellent relationship and they always have time to talk … to even a small grower.”

Paul Taylor – Partner in P and K Taylor (Supplier of Simplot Australia Russet Burbank for over 25 years)

View more of our testimonials here.

NORTH WEST POTATO SEED TOUR

Kevin Langmaid reviews our most recent Seed Tour that occured in the North West in February 2016.

I recently joined in with the seed tour of the North West area, and I must say I really liked what I was shown and what I heard.

We first went to Lileah to Alex Littlejohn’s property and viewed two paddocks of very nice seed. The tuber samples we were shown were very nice, unblemished, of good shape and size and due to be sprayed off very soon. The crop foliage was a good colour.

The tour was very well attended with some 35+ growers and industry reps attending. We then progressed up to Daryl Lohrey’s property and witnessed three more very nice seed crops. Again the samples were very good, well shaped and unblemished.

We visited Tim Hine’s RB paddock and his Top Cat crops. Tim has experienced a difficult season, as have others in the northwest due to the dry conditions. He believes he can finish the crops off OK if conditions don’t get any worse. The RB Sample looked good apart from being a little small so the next few weeks will be important for his yield. The Top Cat crop had an amazing amount of foliage, long and lush due to a nitrogen application. It may have been too early for tuber set had finished, and this caused the foliage growth instead of tuber growth. Consequently, tuber numbers are down which will keep his over all yield down. However the tuber sample looked really good and will make nice seed.

We visited a couple of paddocks of Glenn Carr’s. Again we witnessed really nice seed crops in particular the one up at Loyetea. This I thought was very impressive, new ground in high altitude, light red soil and the sample we witnessed was very impressive. If he can finish off well and get them to store in good condition they should make excellent seed.

Seed buyers must remember the better the seed line the better the out come will be for their crop. Seed which is healthy and of good shape, not too big will cut in to good even seed pieces, planters will always make a better job at planting time.

The big rain which fell on some northern midland seed crops may have done some damage. However, the rain event did occur early, so any problems should be gone completely by harvest time.

I have noticed that we still repeat some of the old mistakes, which we know, are wrong and this includes Cherry Hill. This includes planting too deep, fertiliser too close to seed piece, too many small pieces or too many large seed pieces – not because we do not know, but because of inattention to machine adjustment. However we know it is important to have good clean even seed to help achieve good out comes.

Some discussions on DNA testing of plants were raised with some people expressing some disappointment in not having a clear understanding of the plants immediate needs. However, Les Murdoch (Simplot Seed Manager), expressed the need to be patient with the technology.

Let’s see how the technology evolves over the next five to ten years – maybe this procedure could be very valuable to growers.

I have to thank Simplot for an excellent seed tour and a great lunch at Daryl Lohrey’s. Lets hope for a good seed harvest, which will start in a couple of weeks or so.

Kevin is now retired, however can regularly be found out at the Cherry Hill Coolstores. He lives in East Devonport and would describe himself as very happily retired with still a key interest in Cherry Hill. Andrew regularly refers to Kevin for his advice and opinions.

EASTER MESSAGE

We’d like to take the chance to wish all of our fabulous customers, staff, friends and family a happy Easter break. Stay safe and enjoy a well earned break. Don’t forget just to give us a call though if you need to make any arrangements for your seed over this time closer to the date. We’re here to help.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Please note that some months ago we changed banks to the ANZ (a few customers have still been using our old details so please update your records as we now have new banking details).