Lincoln professor to go to Queensland

Press, 8 September 1978, Page 15

Lincoln professor to go to Queensland

Professor T. M. Morrison, who has been a key figure in the spectacular growth of horticulture at Lincoln College in recent years, is to leave the college to take up the position of director of the Queensland Agricultural College, near Gatton, from the beginning of next year.

About a quarter of the students at the college are now studying in the horticulture, landscape and parks department, of which he is head and since he became professor of horticulture and head of the department in 1966 the number Of academic staff in it has increased from two to 14. But quite apart from pure statistics, the blossoming department has had a marked effect on the college as a whole in its emphasis, in particular, on people. Professor Morrison came to Lincoln in 1960 as a senior lecturer in the plant science department. He was subsequently promoted to reader before taking up the chair of horticulture.

Bom in South Otago he was educated at South Otago High School at Balclutha and served for two years with the Fleet Air Arm in Britain before starting studies at Otago University, where he gained bachelor and master of science and also doctorate of philosophy degrees, all in botany and specialising in plant physi-

Joining the Soil Bureau Of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in Wellington as a biologist he was with the department for three years before returning to Otago as a lecturer in bot» any for two years. He says that he never really ever envisaged that he would become professor of horticulture, but when the position was advertised he realised that with his botanical background and his experience at the Soil Bureau and in the plant science department at the college he was Deally not far removed from horticulture. I. D. Blair, in his history of the college, “The Seed They Sowed” notes that under Professor Morrison a programme of development and growth in horticulture that was expansive and dynamic was initiated.

Apart from the sheer growth in student num-* bers in his department Professor Morrison believes that this has brought a certain leaven* ing to the institution with its “very self centred agricultural fraternity” and with the introduction of sociological subjects on a fairly extensive scale has helped to break down "the very hard headed attitude of commercial farming.”

For instance, he says that in horticultural management labour management ranks possibly equally with financial management whereas in farm management there has always been a heavy bias to financial management with little attention being given to people. Also in his department courses have been developed in the quality of life for both urban and rural people in the field of landscape and more recently in recreation.

These courses are sociologically based and two staff members have just been appointed who have postgraduate degrees in sociology.

Professor Morrison said that these developments had caused a few eyebrows to be raised and in a fairly pragmatic agricultural field there whs a very strong suspicion of the diffuse field of sociology. But this was bound to produce a greater sensitivity in the college to people, which it had tended to ignore.

However he said that the development that had taken place in horticulture would never have been achieved had they not had a separate department and staff — in other words a separate identity — and this had helped enormously and enabled them to progress possibly rather faster than agriculture. To make changes in agriculture was very difficult but in the horticulture department they knew their industry better than agriculture because it was smaller, and also more of the individuals involved in it, and as well the department provided the administration and services for a number of national horticultural organisations such as the Tree Crop Association, the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture, the Institute of Landscape Architects and the New Zealand Institute of Parks and Recreation Administration.

They were also dealing either directly or indirectly with just under 1000 horticultural students, of whom about 320 were full-time university students and the remainder working through the New Zealand Institute of Horticulture on a part time basis. They thus had a very large commitment to horticulture in New Zealand as a whole. Professor Morrison is incidentally chairman of the examining board of the Royal New Zealand

Institute of Horticulture and was formerly chairman of the institute’s national executive.

Turning to the practical field of horticulture itself, Professor Morrison said that 12 years ago the college had embarked cfti extensive berry fruit grow* ing — the first to do so in New Zealand — and at the same time they had begun studies in crop diversification in vegetables, fruits and for wine making. From the very start they had also sought to establish stable exports of horticultural products. They had also probably been in the forefront in showing the very high returns that could be obtained from horticultural crops on small areas. The extension of intensive cropping to agriculture was not necessarily the most successful development. In the time that he had been in the department the part of the industry that had survived had been the smaller busi* nesses.

The four to eight hectare blocks seemed to be insulated against downturns in the economy and the important thing was that they involved people. They did not have the capital investment of a large industry and were able to cut down on Overheads without hurting anyone.

When he had first taken up the cha’r he said he could see acres of tomatoes, strawberries and black currants being grown on a farm scale, but things did not work that way. So he saw horticulture having some advantages over agriculture because Of this.

Looking ahead Professor Morrison said he could see agricultural and horticultural cropping turning to production of high quality luxury fruits, like Kiwi fruit, and into providing energy rather than food.

Horticulturists, he said were dealing with plants that were near the limit of production under high fertility conditions and had to exercise close control of pests and diseases and moisture. So lack of frost protection and disease control could have serious possibilities for them. Thus they had the capacity to bring to intensive cropping in agriculture the same sort of high level of husbandry.

At the same time if they brought to agriculture the same respect for people and the quality of

life, then he felt that they would have done a great deal, said Pressor Morrison. When he first moved into the chair of horticulture Professor Morrison brought with him a large group erf post graduate students from his old department but this work has since been taken up by others on his staff and more recently he has been mainly concerned with course development. The college in Queensland to which he is going is 48km east of Toowoomba and 80km west of Brisbane. Known as a College of Advanced Education it grants postgraduate qualifications as well as degrees and diplomas but does not yet confer doctorates of philosophy. When he first saw it four years ago Professor Morrison says it reminded him very much of Lincoln in the 19605. It has a very strong farming background and also staff and students are similar to Lincoln. Today the student roll numbers about 800 and there is a staff of 300, including about 75 academic staff. But it has also extended beyond agriculture and today it is the only institution in Australia giving a degree in horticulture. It has a food technology school involved largely in food processing and also a school of hospitality to train people for the tourist industry like hotel and motel managers. Apart from having the departments that are normally associated with agriculture, it gives a considerable degree of attention to animals and has a very strong Arabian horse stud, bee studs and also Angora goats and several breeds of mainly exotic cattle. Professor Morrison is going to it at a time when there is a deliberate policy of holding tertiary institutions at their present level of growth in favour of expansion of technical training, and the only possibilities for growth may lie in the availability of funds from teacher training which is receiving the biggest cuts in expenditure, but it is unlikely that the Lincoln professor will have the opportunities for growth and development that he has had at Lincoln within the horticulture area in the last decade.