Vegalogue

A few episodes ago we spoke to grower Dan Hodges about some of the cutting-edge agtech he’d seen on a study tour of the US.

Well in April, some of that leading tech was on display in Tasmania at the Ag Innovation Expo 2025, held at the Hagley Farm School by the Tasmanian Agricultural Productivity Group.

Ian Layden from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries was at the expo to run a farm mechanisation field demo as part of the VegMech project, a three-year project to help Australian vegetable growers adopt advanced mechanisation te...

Duration: 00:08:57

Discover why resilient local agriculture is critical to national security. Andrew Henderson shares practical steps to safeguard Australia's food systems for a more secure, sustainable future.

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries. 

Join us for insights from growers, industry leaders, and researchers on the latest challenges and opportunities in Australian horticulture.

Vegalogue is the podcast from AUSVEG, the peak body for Australia’s vegetable, potato, and onion industries, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Thank...

Duration: 00:34:40

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Annual ryegrass is one of the most costly weeds for the Australian ag industry. It’s a major problem in grain crops, and it causes significant issues in horticulture as well.

For many years, farmers have relied on herbicides to control ryegrass, but in Australia the weed has now evolved resistance to multiple chemistries, particularly post-emergents.

The prevalence of herbicide resistance in ryegrass populations varies around the co...

Duration: 00:15:02

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Workforce shortages remain a major challenge for horticulture, with nearly half of Australian vegetable growers reporting difficulty in filling skilled and semi-skilled roles. In this episode, we explore how early education and industry engagement can shape a stronger, more sustainable horticulture workforce.

Luciano Mesiti, CEO of the Primary Industries Education Foundation Australia (PIEFA), joins us to discuss the crucial role that food and fibre education plays in...

Duration: 00:24:06

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

The deep, sandy soils of Western Australia’s Swan Coastal Plain are among the most infertile in the world.

They’re also where many of the state’s vegetables are produced, however, and growers have long struggled with the low ability of these soils to retain nutrients or moisture.

More than 60 percent of irrigation water and nitrogen fertiliser applied to vegetables on the sandy soils of the Swan C...

Duration: 00:16:48

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vibrant sector.

The Australian vegetable industry is at a crossroads. With the new mandatory Food and Grocery Code of Conduct set to take effect on 1 April 2025, and the ACCC Supermarket Inquiry nearing its conclusion, growers have a rare...

Duration: 00:16:49

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Historically, Australian producers have been rapid adopters of new technology and innovation, and the current generation is no different. Growers are looking to new agricultural technologies, or agtech for short, to help them confront the pressure from climate change, labour shortages, rising input costs and changing market demands.

The technologies being explored read like a list of TED Talks keywords; artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, drones, big data, the internet...

Duration: 00:14:13

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body, AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vibrant sector.

With the new mandatory Food and Grocery Code of Conduct set to commence on 1 April 2025, and the ACCC Supermarket Inquiry due to report at the end of February, the Australian grocery sector is undergoing significant scrutiny...

Duration: 00:17:15

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Facing rising input costs and greater environmental awareness, an increasing number of Australian vegetable growers are practicing a system of farming that has come to be known as ‘regenerative agriculture’.

Regenerative agriculture means different things to different people, but in a broad-brush sense it’s a holistic way of managing landscapes that aims to move beyond sustainability to regenerate natural systems, while at the same time supporting the viability of far...

Duration: 00:24:59

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

The need for good biosecurity practices on farm has been painfully underlined recently, with the incursion of the tomato brown rugose fruit virus in South Australia costing growers millions. But the benefits of good on-farm biosecurity go a lot further than just this kind of rare but high-impact exotic incursion.

Good biosecurity can also address the standard pest and disease pressures growers face every day. It can translate to...

Duration: 00:08:34

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

The Australian vegetable, potato and onion industry currently faces a range of operating challenges threatening the viability of growers who supply 98 percent of the fresh vegetables bought and consumed in Australia.

Bill Bulmer is a dedicated advocate for vegetable, potato and onion growers, drawing on his experience as a respected third-generation vegetable farmer and owner of Bulmer Farms in Victoria.

He holds the position of Chair of...

Duration: 00:19:11

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body, AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vibrant sector.

The Australian supermarket sector is under significant examination, with government reviews focusing on market competition, pricing practices, and consumer protection. These reviews aim to address concerns about the dominance of major supermarket chains and seek to...

Duration: 00:19:05

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

In the aftermath of any weather event, if you talk to five growers in a given region, you’ll get six different weather reports.

General weather forecasts rarely provide the local accuracy needed to make crucial farming decisions. Recognising that shortcoming is a levy funded project started earlier this year that applies AI to the task of hyper-local weather forecasting.

The project, Using AI and machine learning to...

Duration: 00:19:19

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vital industry.

With the Australian government pushing for net zero emissions by 2050 and customers, retailers, and financial institutions increasingly wanting information on growers’ emissions, the agriculture sector is at the forefront of the climate change narrative, facing pressure to...

Duration: 00:16:19

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

With two distinct seasons, the Northern Territory’s vegetable industry has one principal growing window that is ideally placed to meet the needs of Australia’s southern states during their winter.

Most of the NT’s young vegetable industry’s output is sent interstate, which has had a big impact on its structure and crops, but the evolution of Northern Territory horticulture has also been touched by the big South Ea...

Duration: 00:17:41

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vital industry.

Lean management is an approach that optimises efficiency by minimising waste and maximising value for businesses. It can be applied to a wide range of industries – from construction to agriculture.

In this episode of Ve...

Duration: 00:20:31

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

The US is the fourth largest onion producer in the world, and harvests more than 12 times the annual onion volume of Australia.

But despite being an order of magnitude larger, the fundamentals in the field are very similar, and pests, diseases and weeds are as much a threat to the US onion industry as they are in Australia.

Managing those threats is impossible without understanding the total...

Duration: 00:11:30

Vegalogue is a regular podcast from vegetable, potato and onion industry peak body AUSVEG, where we examine the pressing issues and latest developments in our sector.

Join us as we discuss the many diverse facets of commercial vegetable production in Australia with growers, industry figures, researchers and many more of the incredible people who make up our vital industry.

This episode is the first of our new Advocacy Editions, where we'll be unpacking the big issues facing the industry with a range of industry experts.

Recent AUSVEG Industry Sentiment Surveys have highlighted persistent...

Duration: 00:21:26

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each episode we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

At Hort Connections in Melbourne in early June, 10 of the horticulture industry’s leading lights were recognised with the presentation of the Horticulture Awards for Excellence for 2024.

The winners of these awards have fascinating stories to tell about overcoming challenges to build some of the most successful businesses in the industry, groundbreaking re...

Duration: 00:23:43

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each episode we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

In the last episode we had a chat with Dr Kelvin Montagu about a project he ran a few years ago exploring the benefits of cover cropping for vegetable growers.

This episode, we speak with a grower who was part of that project, Peter Schreurs and Sons, and how it started them...

Duration: 00:14:46

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each episode we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This episode, we look at the benefits of cover cropping, which are many and varied. Vegetable growers are increasingly working cover crops into their rotations, but getting a good return on the investment can get a little complex.

It’s important to be clear on what you want to get out of a...

Duration: 00:31:50

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each episode we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This episode, we discuss:

The common factor driving a $20,000 per hectare difference between Australia's most profitable vegetable and onion growers and the industry average, as discovered by the Level Up Hort project.An aerial drone spraying demonstration night run by VegNET Gippsland.

Guests:

Paul Omodei, Director...

Duration: 00:14:50

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each episode we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This episode, we discuss drying and curing onions with Brad Hicks of vegetable storage and handling company Tolsma Australia, and the pros and cons of different curing shed designs used around Australia.

Guests:

Brad Hicks, After Sales and Service Manager, Tolsma Australia

Vegalogue is the...

Duration: 00:24:38

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each episode we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This month, we discuss:

The upcoming Hort Connections 2024 conference and trade show, the biggest event of its kind in the southern hemisphere.How to get more vegetables onto primary school canteen menus, and the changing structure of canteens that may make it possible.A sensor-studded smart farm that's building a model...

Duration: 00:21:11

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each month we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This month, we discuss:

How the transition from varroa mite eradication to management has gone, and the priorities for the new plan.The cross-agriculture collaboration to manage Fall armyworm amidst the largest outbreak of the pest since it was detected in Australia.Why cauliflowers need a sun hat, and what growers...

Duration: 00:27:41

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each month we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This month, we discuss:

How the Australian horticulture levy system works, and how it gives Australian growers an edge.New glasshouse films that could reduce energy consumption and increase productivity in protected cropping.A new plan that's finding ways to reduce the horticulture sector's on-farm food waste for the benefit of...

Duration: 00:32:30

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each month we take a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This month, we discuss:

How the state-by-state rollout of the new Primary Production and Processing (PPP) Standard for leafy vegetables, berries and melons is progressing.A major new project developing a national biosecurity strategy for vegetables, the Vegetable industry biosecurity and business continuity strategy (VG22004).Changes to the vegetable industry seen...

Duration: 00:35:14

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each month we'll be taking a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This month, we discuss:

The Onions Australia merger with AUSVEGPre-harvest sanitation of leafy green vegetablesThe opportunities and hurdles for vegetables as snack foodsThe Gatton AgTech Showcase

Guests:

Michael Coote, CEO, AUSVEGAdjunct Professor Tom Ross and Senior Research Fellow Dr Alieta Eyles,  University of TasmaniaMartin Kneebone, Managing D...

Duration: 00:29:42

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each month we'll be taking a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This month, we discuss:

The big developments on the horizon for the horticulture sector as we move into 2024Research presented at the levy-funded South Australian Onion Growers Growers LunchBoomaroo Nurseries Women in Horticulture Award 2023 winner Angela Candeloro

Guests:

Michael Coote, CEO, AUSVEGProfessor Lindsey du Toit, Department...

Duration: 00:24:05

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each month we'll be taking a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This month, we discuss:

Opportunities and lessons for Australian vegetable exports in the UK and EuropeThe levy-funded project bolstering Australian vegetable, onion and melon export developmentHort Innovation Exporter of the Year Frank Frappa of Premier Fresh Australia

Guests:

Mike Knowles, Managing Director, Fruitnet EuropeFred Searle, Editor...

Duration: 00:36:20

Vegalogue is a podcast from Australian vegetable peak industry body AUSVEG. Each month we'll be taking a look at issues affecting the Australian vegetable, potato and onion sectors, unpacking levy-funded research and meeting some of the incredible people who make up the vegetable industry.

This month, we discuss:

European certification schemes for horticulture and what they could mean for Australian vegetable growersA levy-funded project investigating the causes and treatment of internal fruit rot of capsicumMoving from sugar cane to groundbreaking vegetable grower with Syngenta Grower of the Year winner Pirrone Brothers

Guests:<...

Duration: 00:33:05