Thought I'd do a quick intro as been reading this site for a few months now and find it very interesting and helpful! My wife and I have just bought a 5ha block outside of Taupo with the plan to plant it in hazelnut and (maybe) almonds. We are currently in Auckland and are looking to move permanently to Taupo in a couple of years (once youngest finishes school). We're finding we have lots of learning to do as we are both complete city kids - one grew up in Auckland, the other London - so this site is great!
Currently, the place is mostly pasture (neighbours using it for grazing) and a large number of unidentified trees, so we have lots of planning ahead! We want to make the orchard as close to a permaculture type system as practical so doing a lot of reading at the moment ahead of any plantings.
Hello Paul, and welcome
Without knowing more about your block, it's difficult to give detailed advice, but some things to consider would be:
- Have you had soil samples taken to check for any chemical residues? Just because it's in grazing now doesn't mean it always has been, and there are some places in NZ that have either been sprayed intensively in the past or used to dump agri-chemicals.
- Hazelnuts require a certain amount of chilling every year to crop well. Depending on where you are in the Taupo area, this may or may not be an issue, but you should get hold of past records of winter chill, and also consider that as the climate warms, crops that may be possible now may not be viable in the future. Almonds are less finicky about temperature, and walnuts and chestnuts may also be suitable if your land is borderline for hazelnuts.
- Rats love nuts. You will have to set up an effective pest control network across your property unless you want to harvest just empty shells.
- Have you thoroughly researched your markets? Are you aiming for local boutique sales, or to some type of commercial buyer? Do you plan to process the nuts before sale, or only sell them in shell? All of these things will affect the varieties you choose, and the machinery you may need to invest in.
All that being said, best of luck to you! It's a big leap, but many other people have done similar things and done well. The key thing (as you already know) is to research everything thoroughly before shelling out money. As you're already doing that, you're 50% of the way there already,
If you are going into nuts, ensure that someone close by has harvesting, cleaning, sorting and processing equipment that they will hire at a reasonable rate. Doing it by hand is impossibly slow and tedious, and 5 hectares is too small for your business to own the equipment needed, unless you are planning to be a contract harvestor. I was going to make mega-bucks from walnuts planted 25 years ago, so planted ten trees on our sloping property. All I get from these trees is a mega rodent problem.
as we have said before, first do your market survey, growing is the easy part, selling is a real skill. Best thing is to fix up all the fences and run a few sheep, this will ease you into the rural life and responsibities. Get a good vege garden going, don't take on too much at first. Now is notthe
5 acres, Ferguson 35X and implements, Hanmay pto shredder, BMW Z3, Countax ride on mower, chooks, Dorper and Wiltshire sheep. Bosky wood burning central heating stove and radiators. Retro caravan. Growing our own food and preserving it. Small vineyard, crap wine.
Fully understand the need to look at the economics of it all - from planting to production - we are lucky that there is already a lot of work done by people like Rotorua council and Tree Crops so that's been a great starting place. I'm hoping that once we are producing in 3 to 5 years we will be able to source some harvesting/processing equipment that won't break the bank- and if we are lucky, find other grows in the region to work with!
At the moment we are just enjoying the learning experience and looking forward to getting a few 'test' almond trees in the ground next autumn!
Gidday Paul, I can't help with any planting advice but PM me if you have any questions about moving to Taupo, earthworks, settling in and setting up the site, building a house, etc. My wife and I moved out of Auckland and have been on four hectares in Taupo for about two years now. We've recently finished building (not ourselves) and we're working on the next stage of the property - landscaping, permanent structures and our own planting. It's a huge learning curve for us but we're enjoying getting out of our "townie" comfort zone!
thanks for the offer. We travel to Taupo a lot for holidays so know the area well but finding good contacts for tradies and such like always needs that local knowledge!
