Clean Coastal Catchments (CCC)

Blueberry Research Facility Open Day 

More than fifty growers, agronomists, and others working in coastal horticultural industries joined us for a tour of the CCC Blueberry Research Facility Open Day at the Wollongbar Primary Industries Institute on 10 April 2024.

We started the day with an inspection of the automated fertigation system in the CCC site control shed with CCC Field Technical Officer, Diana Unsworth, before moving on to our state of the art blueberry tunnels with DPI Senior Research Scientist, Dr Sophie Parks. The tunnels house 300 blueberry plants grown in a soilless substrate where we are trialing fertigation recipes to reduce nutrient waste and unnecessary fertiliser costs for growers.

More detail about the blueberry research currently underway at the Wollongbar site is discussed on the CCC Fertiliser & Sediment Management Insights page.

We also showed off the woodchip bioreactor and reedbed installed to consume excess nitrogen in the drainage water from our potted berry plants. Environmental Scientist, Dr Mark Bayley, discussed on farm solutions to reduce nitrogen leaving your farm. You can find out more about Dr Bayley's work with CCC in the article, 'A review of nature-based systems to treat blueberry irrigation runoff'.

Harriet Brickhill from North Coast Local Land Services (LLS) also shared information about LLS funding incentives for growers to adopt sustainable farm management strategies. Meg Strang was MC for the day and additional assistance was provided by DPI staff Melinda Simpson, Josh Jarvis, and Leanne Davis.

The CCC-Research project is delivered by the NSW Department of Primary Industries and funded by the NSW Government under the Marine Estate Management Strategy. The ten-year Strategy was developed by the NSW Marine Estate Management Authority to coordinate the management of the marine estate.