Winter is well and truly gone and the buds are heavy on the trees but still very few flowers showing yet in the Bay of Islands area and further North.
Which brings me to the Field day held at Barry Wade’s grove on Sunday 30th September. We had lots of discussions of when the fruit is ready for harvest and Barry fielded some good questions on the 180 day rule – i.e. he works close to 180 days from the middle of the flowering period to begin picking – for me this is very interesting as it is more or less what the Europeans have been doing for 100’s of years yet seem to be abandoning the rule over the last 15 years or so to a more scientific basis because (I quote) “we need to change some of our rigid old rules and traditions and start to produce more quality rather than quantity”.