Hazelnut Newsletter Number 5 – December 2002

Recent Activities

The AGM and seminar was held over the weekend 26-27 October with an attendance of 30 plus members.  The AGM resulted in the passing of the baton to the new president Peter Wheelwright, but the position of Vice President/President elect remains to be filled.  It is important that the position be filled as soon as possible to ensure that continuity is maintained and the HGA can continue to grow.  Any nominees should contact the president or Secretary to discuss the position.

The seminar on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning provided some interesting comments and input for the HGA Business plan and research program as well as allowing members to put forward their ideas on improvements to the web-site.  An interesting presentation  by Basil Baldwin on his research results was completed with a taste testing of samples from the trial plots.  The results from the taste testing has caused more than a few growers to think about the varieties that should be grown for the various market niches.  We look forward  with interest to further results from the trail plots.  

Grower/Member Survey

The results of this survey were presented at the AGM and provided some interesting insights to tree locations and varieties.  It is intended to repeat the exercise next year and from this to develop a database of the development of the industry.

Board Activities

The HGA board met in prior to the AGM and continued to develop the Business plan and research projects list.

The Harvest

As we come towards harvest time many of us will suffer from Bird problems.  Below is the Dean’s solution:

Cockatoo Problems

When we bought our farm two years ago our new neighbour suggested that we were going to have difficulty with the cockatoos. We soon found that cockatoos developed a liking for both hazelnuts and chestnuts and we had to spend a lot of time chasing the birds off the crops and harvesting Hazelnuts daily.   Cockatoo numbers tended to increase as the season developed and as we could not be home every day, unlike the cockatoos, the flocks build up to the hundreds and these flocks can eat a lot of crops in a short time. We don’t keep a dog or a gun so decided if we were to be serious about growing nuts, we had to do something about the bird problem.

A lot of people advertise products that they reportedly successfully counter bird problems and we decided it was time to try some of the less expensive bird scare devices. The plastic hawks seem to work for a few days particularly when suspended high above the crops but require a lot of work moving them around to new locations every few days which is necessary to maintain effectiveness. We found we got a similar effect by positioning the tractor at various places around the paddock. That was certainly a lot easier to manage.

I have seen bird scare balloons and scare eyes used in commercial fruit orchids and tried some of these without much success. The advertising suggests that these scare devices work best if placed above the crops at a height favoured by the birds so we then tried helium balloons. The wind in our area is much to fast and consistent to allow the balloons to float up so we had to abandon this technique. At one stage we had some resident eagles that keep the cockatoos away until the cockatoos ganged up on the eagles and chased them away.

With little success with bird scare devices we noticed a product called “Scat” Bird and Animal repellent made by Multicrop. The active ingredient is Aluminium Ammonium Sulphate and the instructions suggest; “Apply first application before a problem occurs or as soon as possible after the first damage is seen. Following successful treatment, repeat applications can be made using half strength solution. Not all animals respond immediately and persistence is necessary to ensure that re-training is successful. Once behaviour has been controlled repeat applications can be done periodically. “   We treated a number of hazelnut trees and fruit trees and didn’t observe a significant change in bird behaviour. Perhaps the birds were just more persistent than we were. It would be good to hear from growers who have had some success from this product.

Around this time we had bought netting to net the fruit orchid. We had some netting left over and decided to drape it over some of the hazelnut trees to reduce the cockatoo problem.   The net was 250m x 6m two ply netting with a diamond shaped hole pattern 20mm across the flats. Generally, diamond shape holes can distort more easily than hexagonal shape so it will stretch longer at the expense of width. This netting came from Oblomov Trading Co. in a large bag so we were able to drive along the rows while feeding out the netting and draping it over the trees which were mostly about 2 m high. Some additional work was required to position it on the taller pollinator trees.   Although the net did not reach the ground in many places it seemed to deter the cockatoos. This allowed us to concentrate of efforts on keeping the cockatoos off the rest of our crop. We later transferred the netting to the second patch where it covered only a section of trees but provided sufficient protection to reduce our workload.

For the last season we decided that the netting was the most effective device and that we could get sufficient netting to cover the main hazelnut patch at a reasonable cost. Oblomov advised that the old product was no longer available but we could get a netting 250m x 11m with a hex pattern 13mm holes at $3 per meter. This seemed reasonable as the 11m width should allow the trees to be covered all the way to the ground. I ordered three rolls which were delivered to the door. The netting was single ply and therefore not as robust as the previous netting and came tightly bound on a cylindrical roll.

We rigged up a simple axle and loaded the roll on to the farm bike trailer then attached an imitation basketball hoop to the end of a 3m long timber clamped to the trailer so the net fed up through the hoop and could be drawn out over the trees. It still took a couple of days for two of us to get the three rolls of netting positioned on the trees and when finished we found that it was much easier to join the netting overhead between rows than to allow each row to be covered separately. This also saved on netting but in our case this was not a consideration as we had more than enough. We connected the netting with plastic ties as recommended by Oblomov but we did leave a few gaps here and there due to time restrictions.

There was sufficient netting to allow us to cover the smaller plot where the smaller trees and wider spacing meant the individual rows were covered and weighted down along each side with bricks, pegs, rocks and anything we could find. We later found some cockatoo size holes in this netting and on one or two occasions some cockatoos trapped inside. I gave these cockatoos a severe talking to and had no further problems from them after that, although we did chase them away any time we saw them near the crop.

On the larger patch where we left a few holes and gaps in the netting, we found rosellas and foxes still got in and caused some crop damage but cockatoos seemed to just sit on top and eventually gave up. We never saw any evidence of cockatoos under this netting.   It was less than ideal draping the netting over the trees as it is difficult to put on, take off, causes loss of catkins and buds and damages the net. Ideally the netting needs a scaffold to hold it up off the trees to avoid most of these problems. We hope we will find the time to erect some form of scaffold in time for the next season.

While reasonably happy with the success of the netting it is obviously no use for chestnut trees so we looked at devices from BirdGard. These devices emit a sound that is supposed to be uncomfortable to the cockatoos and causes them to leave. Jim Savage (BirdGard) asked for a mud map of the property showing the terrain and direction from which the birds attack the crop. This mud map showed that cockatoos can attack our patch from virtually all sides. Jim therefore recommended that we run 16 speakers 30m apart right down the centre of the orchid facing opposite directions and positioned 1m above chestnut tree height with two sound generators.

Jim’s second option was two Multi-blasters. We thought both options were too expensive and complicated and were not convinced they would be effective; additionally, our chestnuts tend to crop at one end of the orchid before the other so we elected to go for a single multi-blaster which we figured should provide coverage for half the trees.    As soon as the Multi-blaster was erected and powered up the cockatoos appeared to leave the area and we had no problem from them for the rest of the season. The rosellas appeared to take little notice of the device.

When the season was finished we decided to leave the Multi-blaster running so as not to encourage feeding on the remaining fruit. At this time the cockatoos returned and were happy to feed all around and under the speakers. BirdGard advised that we had not installed the system as recommended, which was true, but we figured that if it was a matter of sound volume then the cockatoos would have fed at the far end of the patch instead of directly under the speakers.

A charitable explanation is that during peak season when there are many other food sources the cockatoos will avoid the sound but later on as food sources reduce will put up with the sound to feed.

Coming Events

Your committee is busy organizing Field days for 2003.  More details will be advised when dates and locations are finalized.

Conclusion

This newsletter is intended to provide a means of communication between the Board and the HGA members.   Comments on the newsletter and articles/information for inclusion are welcomed and should be addressed to The President, Peter Wheelwright, by phone on 0419 761 844, or by email to pwheelwright@bigpond.com