Testimonials

Geoff Bugden has transformed from a professional rugby league player to an accomplished police detective to an innovative orchardist. "I spent many years trying to remove the grubs from society and now I’m doing the same things with grubs in the orchard. The main difference is that whenever we were successful jailing undesirables in the court room there was always someone on the reserve bench fronting up to take their place. At least with Longhorned Beetles you can cut them out and the job’s done!"

 

History:

Wilson River Pecans is located in Lismore in Northern NSW, and is owned and operated by Geoff and Debbie Bugden. The Bugden’s purchased the property 5 years ago with a small orchard based upon 500 mature pecan trees. The pecan is a sweet, soft-shelled American nut that thrives in the soils and climate of Northern NSW. The orchard was producing 8 tonnes of pecans in an ‘off year’ and 10 tonnes during an ‘on year’ at the time of purchase. Geoff inherited a conventional approach towards herbiciding, pesticiding and fertilising. However, he was constantly getting urea burns on his hands and disliked spraying the chemicals and he questioned why they were placing such products on their food-producing trees. He commented "We were scared to change the methods on the farm but we weren’t happy applying all of the chemicals."

 

A Positive Change Towards Biological Farming:

In 2005 Geoff attended the NTS Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture. Over the four days of the course he discovered new strategies to build his productivity and profitability with a biological approach. An NTS agronomist designed an appropriate nutrition program and Geoff applied his first Personal Prescription Blend™ in early 2006. The Personal Prescription Blend™ contained a high-carbon base combined with all of the minerals needed to balance his soil according to his soil test. The Bugdens were still a little hesitant with the new approach so they decided to apply only half of the recommendation. This decision was also based upon their concern about flooding and subsequent washaway of the product so in this case it was a good idea to split the application.

2006 was an "on year", so the farm was expected to produce approximately 10 tonnes of pecans. However, the Bugdens were pleasantly surprised to achieve 14 tonnes with their new biological regime. They could only imagine what may have been produced if they had applied the full recommendations. 2007 was even more of a surprise at Wilson River Pecans. This was considered an "off" year with normal productivity expected at around 8 tonnes of nuts. This year the other half of the Personal Prescription Blend™ was applied and the farm produced 20 tonnes – 12 tonnes more than standard "off" years! Unfortunately, a severe hail storm, late in 2007, decimated the Bugden’s entire crop - a crop that had been conservatively estimated at 30 tonnes. The trees are recovering well and next year the Bugden’s are expecting even greater yields.

 

Biological Pest Management:

Wilson River Pecans had a major pest problem with Longhorned Beetles. The Longhorned Beetle commonly lives in the trunks of citrus trees but pecans can also host this pest. These creatures live for 7 years in the trees as grubs and then they emerge as a beetle which survives for 7 days. The grubs ‘eat out’ the trees and the only way to get rid of them is to surgically remove them. This procedure is very hard on the trees and they are less productive in this partially dismembered state. In recent months Geoff has been applying a NTS biological product called Myco-Force™, containing the beneficial fungi

Metarhizium. Geoff believes that bio-management using this product has enormous potential in reducing pest-related costs in Pecans.

Black spot was the other major disease issue and since purchasing the farm the problem seemed to be increasing every year. The disease was identified as anthracnose. It was a major concern as the disease resulted in the crumbling away of the leaf, creating less leaf surface area for the much needed process of photosynthesis. A monthly application of Tricho-Shield ™ has produced such outstanding results that it has become a permanent part of the management program.

Another key aspect to Geoff’s biological approach is to ensure optimum tree nutrition throughout the season. This is achieved through regular leaf testing and foliar spraying/fertigation of identified nutrient requirements. In previous years, Geoff was losing around 45% of their nuts and their nutrition emphasis has reduced this figure down to just 5% .

 

The Fulvic/Clover Connection:

Geoff has practiced a sustainable herbiciding program where fulvic acid is combined with herbicides to reduce the damage to soil life and speed the removal of toxic residues from the soil. He was fascinated to find that the fulvic acid appeared to stimulate a massive sward of clover where ever it was applied. i.e. within the drip line. This finding has exciting implications for cattle producers struggling to achieve a desirable balance between clover and grasses. NTS will soon embark upon research to evaluate this potential.

 

Seed Start™ Trials and Bio-Bubble™:

Geoff has plans to substantially increase the size of his orchard and has developed a nursery to help achieve this goal. He currently has 4000 young trees in the nursery that have been propagated from seed. Geoff has had spectacular results using the NTS product Seed Start™ as a seed treatment. He has seen a massive improvement in germination rates and a huge growth difference between treated and untreated seeds.

Geoff is also a big fan of the NTS probiotic, Bio-Bubble™. He stated, "I used to get the flu once a year but since having Bio-Bubble every day I haven’t had a cold or flu".

 

Geoff’s Program:

Aside from the Personal Prescription Blends™ Geoff uses NTS Soluble Humate Granules™ and NTS Soluble Fulvic Acid Powder™ with all of his fertilisers to magnify their effect. He purchased an NTS Brewstar™ Microbe Brewer and regularly applies brews of compost tea and Nutri-Life 4/20™. He uses LMF™ (Liquid Microbe Food) to grow the beneficial organisms and he uses Dominate™ (fungi) to achieve good fungi numbers for this fungal–dominated orchard crop.

On the basis of regular leaf analyses he corrects any deficiencies by foliar spraying chelated trace minerals.

 

Passing Down with Pride:

The biological strategies including the prescription blends had more than paid for themselves within one year and the profit was used to purchase an impressive new orchard sprayer/mister. The Bugdens have become passionate producers of high quality, health-enhancing food and they look forward to a time where their son will inherit a fertile, super productive property.