2021-2022 President's Report

The continuation of restrictions on movement and gatherings has meant that the HFS 2021-22 financial year was a quiet one for volunteers and the Society. Income was significantly lower than usual: we were unable to run any annual grafting or sales days, and owing to an exceptionally poor crop, we could run only one apple tasting during the year. However, on-line sales contributed to our bottom line, as well as the carry-over of sales to Yarra Organics – an offset of $1200 from our usual contribution of $1800 for services such as spraying and equipment use. Our overall income was only slightly more than half of that of the previous year, while we have needed to keep up expenditure on materials and running costs for the orchard block and our activities. The end result was a financial loss for the year of slightly under $2,000.

Owing to COVID-19 mandates regarding travel and access, only for eight months of the year could we run our normal schedule of three-workshops-per-month without volunteer number limits. This meant not only less contact with our precious volunteers, but quite possibly losing some of them as well.

Despite all this, we have made significant progress in some areas. The HFS Nursery has been improved during this year, with the installation of robust shade-cloth protection and our first new sheet-metal bath. Using a float valve to regulate the water level in this bath may become the norm for our nursery baths in the future.

Thanks to one of our most regular and persistent volunteers, our section of the orchard is now finally almost completely free of blackberries.

We had little contact with outside organisations this year, but are intending to further our joint conservation work with other groups, especially the National Trust and the Toora Pear Orchard.  While we didn’t collect plum scion from Healesville during the year, we have grown-on the trees we already had, many of which will be planted in the new Row 1 area in the 2022-23 year. In the new Row 2, we will be planting out new double-grafted apple trees, each trained to make it easy to identify its individual varieties. This approach will aid us in our long-term goal of having at least two specimens of each apple variety we hold in the orchard.

Looking to the future, we hope to plant yet more apple, plum and apricot trees and varieties. We also aim to start a small collection of pears at Petty’s. For this, we have been given some quince rootstock grafted with Beurre Hardy pear as an interstock, making them suitable for grafting with some of the rarer pear varieties.

However, having so many newly-planted trees creates additional challenges for us. We will need to find better and more consistent ways to protect them from kangaroo damage, which is all too common in the orchard. We also need a better system for monitoring and watering the young trees during summer. In past years, new plantings have suffered badly from insufficient water: the HFS block’s dripper system is joined to the main Petty’s Orchard irrigation system, which does sporadic multi-day waterings suitable only for mature trees, and in any event is outside of our control. For these purposes, we expect we will need further and more frequent volunteer support to help look after newly planted-out trees, especially during the summer months.

Also planned is the construction of a new shed to expand our storage area and to improve the facilities for our workshops and public events. Planning for is still in the initial stages, as we are proceeding with this project very deliberately: any new works need to be done right the first (and only) time, and should aim to suit the Society’s needs for many years to come.

My thanks to the Committee and especially to all our dedicated volunteers for persevering through a very difficult year, one which nonetheless showed significant progress toward achieving our conservation goals.

- Fred Surr (HFS Vice President), on behalf of the Committee.