 Farmer Mick has been busy as usual making sure the Barenuts orchard thrives from year to year but he's been super busy this past year with the addition of the Barenuts Nursery! That's an extra 6,000 Baby Barenuts to take care of because we are expanding the farm....so it's a very exciting time!
As Summer approaches, these baby beauties are almost ready for planting and what an exciting day that will be! We have been visualising the farm full of trees since we first visited so to actually see that dream come to fruition will be very, very satisfying. To date, we have over 2,000 mature trees which are currently yielding up to 10 tonne and with the additional trees, we hope to be yielding up to 50 tonne by 2020. Macadamia nut farming can test the ole patience as most varieties do not yield fruit for 7 years (commercially), however we are very excited to be planting our some new varieties. We grow 741’s, 816’s and Daddows at the farm – not the most glamourous botanical names but there are so many varieties of macadamia nut trees and they are always developing new varieties (it’s hard to keep up) so I guess the numbering system is working for them? The nursery consists of 6,000 baby macadamia nut trees which will be grafted in the Spring and planted out after Summer. We will be grafting onto our Daddows as well as a new variety that’s just been released. This variety is called the P variety – clever huh and they are actually a much smaller tree, so we will be able to fit more in per hectare and they only grow to a certain height too so it ‘should’ make them easier to maintain. The bonus, they yield just as many nuts as the larger variety so we are very eager to see how they grow at our farm. Technically, we are going into this a little blind as the trials are still quite young so cross your fingers for us! The main differences across varieties include the size and shape of the tree and some varieties have a serrated leaf while others have a smooth leaf. The flowers or racemes can also be different too, most are a pale white/yellow colour but they can also be pink too – I am yet to see this in the flesh but when the whole orchard is in full bloom, the flowers look absolutely magic! The size of the nuts can also vary per variety as well as how long they hold onto their nuts. The Daddows for instance often flower a little later, and therefore drop their nuts later and they also drop quite a lot of leaf as well which they like to store around their trunk for the Winter, much to Farmer Mick’s distaste when harvesting! They are also quite bushy, and have a Christmas tree shape. They are one of our favourites because even if they hang onto their nuts for so much longer, our Daddows are always good to us and produce lots of big, happy and healthy Barenuts! Our 816’s and 741’s are fairly standard, they flower early, drop their nut early and their season is usually over by July/August. Having three different varieties means that our harvest runs much longer than those orchards who just plant the one variety, or spray chemicals to make their trees drop all of their nuts at the same time. We like to let our nuts fall naturally, when they are ready and even if the harvest is 6 months or longer, it makes it easier for Farmer Mick to manage the orchard on his own. That's macadamia nut farming in a nutshell ....well kind of :)
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 Well it,s the first of Spring and it's well and truly sprung at the Barenuts Macadamia Nut Farm! We're already experiencing glimpses of Sprummer (Spring x Summer) days as we eagerly await the summer storms we so desperately need!
Rudi and I walk through the orchard twice a day and at the moment, it's completely abuzz with the hum of our natural pollinators hard at work! The orchard smells absolutely divine so Rudi and I love to face-plant a few macadamia nut flowers along the way because that beautiful fresh smell of honey never gets old. I've always said someone should bottle it and they would make millions - hang on, hold that thought ...maybe that someone could be me one day! Watch this space :) Happy Spring everyone! |
City Chick turned Country Chick living a wholesome, free range all round idyllic life with Farmer Mick, our Baby Barenut & Rudi the Staffy Red Cattle Dog at our Macadamia Nut Farm on the Fraser Coast. Archives
February 2018
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