Fruit Research Officer On Study Visit To U.S.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31091, 21 June 1966, Page 13

Fruit Research Officer On Study Visit To U.S.

Mr J. D. Atkinson, director of the Fruit Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Auckland, left last week for a 10 week tour of North America. He will visit fruit research stations in the United States and Canada and attend the 17th international horticultural congress at the University of Maryland. The main purpose of Mr Atkinson’s tour is to see at first hand North American research covering the whole

range of orchard problems, Including pest and disease control, spur-bearing strains of standard apple varieties, new varieties of various fruits, methods of controlling growth, and new developments in storage and processing. Many of New Zealand’s fruitgrowing problems are similar to those of North America, and much that is learned from research workers there may be applicable here. The personal contacts made by Mr Atkinson may lead to collaboration in the testing of new ideas in both hemispheres, which would enable two season’s results to be obtained within a year. Among the many fruit research stations visited will be that at Summerland, British Columbia, which has several close links with New Zealand. It was the Summerland station that developed the process for making opalescent apple juice which is in use at Stoke today. Another visit of special intesest will be to Kehtsvllle, Nova Scotia, where Mr Atkinson will inspect the integrated control methods used against insects in some eastern Canadian orchards. Integrated control invovles the maximum use of natural enemies of pests, with selective insecticides used only where no effective parasites or predators of a pest species are available. This system is under trial in the research orchard at Appleby, near Nelson, but to date the results have been less impressive than those achieved with it in Canada. Mr Atkinson hopes that his visit to Kentsville will provide useful ideas for improvement of the experimental scheme in New Zealand.