Photos: Michael Bergin
Our 2016 AGM was held at Ian Brennan’s property, Cassie’s Farm, on a glorious Waikato day. We started off with morning tea, followed by the AGM at 10am.
Our chairman Peter Berg announced the sad passing of our patron, Gordon Stephenson and also one of our previous trustees, Ian Campbell. Both men were greatly valued for their roles in Tāne’s Tree Trust and will be sorely missed. Peter introduced our new trustee, Jon Dronfield. Jon runs Forever Beech in Reefton and is a welcome addition to the trust board. Peter also announced that Wiremu Puke, trustee and our iwi connection, had resigned from the trust board.
The ‘Our Forest, Our Future’ project was outlined. This initiative, funded by The Tindall Foundation, moves the work we have been doing on totara in the north onto a much firmer footing. The project allows us to set in place a well-researched basis for planting and managing native forest for multiple purposes including economic harvest. The programme allows for the setting up of trial native tree plantations as demonstration sites, the further development of Northland totara and the economic and biodiversity features of planted and managed native trees.
Ian Brennan then gave us a talk, explaining how he had moved from Scotland and a career in IT, to farming in the Waikato (a Scottish lass was involved …)
We then spent a happy two hours exploring Ian and Trish’s property. Ian has planted extensive shelterbelts and has 4ha of mass planting. This tour demonstrated the vision of Ian in setting up extensive shelter as well as a dense planting of native shelter planting and tree species. A spirited discussion was joined on methods of weed control with Ian advocating strongly for minimal preparation and manual releasing which appears to suit his site admirably.
This is truly a beautiful property, with a wealth of ongoing information to be gleaned from their trial planting and management methods. We must revisit this property in years to come to follow progress and gain the benefits of Ian’s bold experiment.
We ended the tour with a delicious lunch and everyone was able to go home with a rimu sapling, courtesy of Warwick Silvester. We all agreed it was a great day. Thank you to Ian and Trish for hosting us and showing us your wonderful farm.
Ian has produced a superb YouTube video of the work he has been doing on his farm. View it here.
Posted on: 1 December 2016
