The young growers then travelled onto Stanthorpe and Applethorpe on the south Queensland granite belt. Here YGG were greeted by Allan McWaters from DEEDI. A tour of the local research and development property was followed by some tasting of the new highly scab resistant apple RS103-130, which is currently being assessed for commercialisation.

Allan then gave the group a guided tour of the local orchards including Tomasel’s and a walk through Dino Rizzato’s packing shed. Dino uses the Compac packer and packs for larger supermarkets.

A high percentage of orchards are under hail net. We also viewed a netted dam trial to decrease evaporation.