The popularity of protecting growing practices is rising in the Northern Territory. In this article, NT Farmers Industry Development Manager Greg Owens outlines the reasons behind this growth, the investigation into year-round protected cropping vegetable production, and how NT Farmers is helping growers to understand the emerging on-farm technology.
The Northern Territory has already seen the development of a number of types of protected cropping. These have been mainly about keeping crops cool and excluding some very persistent winged and terrestrial vertebrate pests.
Around Darwin, there are many shade and netted structures that have been erected to address these problems. Bird netting on high value tropical fruit crops, like Rambutan, became essential in the early 1990s when the local Rainbow Lorikeets found how good they were to eat.
The other reason for protected cropping is about modifying the environment. In the Darwin region, this has mostly been about keeping the heat out – not locking it in. During the Dry season (winter), minimum temperatures are normally around 15 degrees Celsius (°C), and all days throughout the year are 30°C-plus. This has led to most structures being constructed of white shade cloth. Typically, these are used for the highest value crops such as Lebanese cucumbers and sometimes rotated with snake beans.
Predominantly, growers use in-ground cultivation. Even our larger hydroponics grower uses shade cloth and only produces continental and Lebanese cucumbers during the Dry season.
These structures also work well for tomatoes and capsicum, but it is hard to compete with these products grown in glass and plastic houses in the southern states during the season as the bulk of Northern Territory’s produce is sold in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide during the southern winter.
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