Revised Training Day date for the next Greenhouse Crop Technician's Course

Our next Greenhouse Crop Technician's Course now has a revised date for starting of Monday the 27th of October.

For further details, please contact Colin Bednarz via colin.bednarz@chisholm.edu.au or via phone contact at 03 5990 7162 

International Horticultural Congress 2014

This week the 29th International Horticultural Congress has been taking place at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre  in Queensland, Australia.

The event itself is one of the largest Horticultural conferences in the world, with delegates  coming from all corners of the world.

Staff member Tony Bundock was invited to give a presentation at the Horticultural Congress on the topic of 'Fostering industry participation in the provision of resources for technical training for the modern greenhouse industry'.

Tony also co wrote a paper for this presentation with the chairman of the industry steering group - Geoff Connellan.

 'It was a great opportunity to attend the conference and showcase what we have been doing with the Chisholm training greenhouse to a global audience,' said Tony. 

Further details of the conference can be found at wwwihc2014.org

More training dates announced for our courses.

This week we are pleased to publish the remaining training dates for our popular industry based training courses for 2014.

Our Greenhouse Crop Technician's Course is a 4.5 day course that covers a wide range of basic growing issues, and is unique in that it interacts closely with the use of the Priva Integro / Connext climate management system.

Participants gain first hand experience in using the Priva system as part of their studies as each student has their own computer terminal to use, and operate.This is made possible via the fact that we have 11 additional site licences for our own system. The students can interact with the system and get a really good feel for both navigation and operation of a live system.

Our next course is scheduled to commence on Monday the 8th of September, followed by two further courses commencing on Monday the 13th of October, and the last one for the year on Monday the 24th of November. Details of the September course are listed below.

For new growers looking to enter the industry or gain a better insight in to the area of Tomato growing, our one day Introduction to Commercial Tomato Growing Course provides a highly suitable training day. 

The course covers a wide range of topics that are related to Tomato growing and also allows the participants to undertake a close inspection of the De Ruiter 'Living Proof' growing trial that we host at the Cranbourne Campus.

This is a theoretical and practically integrated course that allows participants to gain hands on skills in both the crop and climate management areas as well as theoretical skills to complement these practical applications.   

Our next course is scheduled to commence on Monday the 15th of September followed by a further course on Monday the 17th of November. Details of the September course are listed below:-

 

Finally, we will also be running our one day Introduction to Computerised Greenhouse Control course. This training day allows the participants to interact closely with the use of the Priva Integro / Connext climate management system, as well as using a Priva Maximizer system for part of the study.

This course is designed for participants that want to learn more about computerised climate management, and for those who are considering installing such systems.

As with out Greenhouse Crop Technician's Course, the participants gain first hand experience in using the Priva system as part of their studies as each student has their own computer terminal to use, and operate.This is made possible via the fact that we have 11 additional site licences for our own system. The students can interact with the system and get a really good feel for both navigation and operation of a live system.

Our next course is scheduled to commence on Monday the 1st of September, followed by two further courses commencing on Tuesday the 28th of October, and the last one for the year on Monday the 1st of December. Details of the September course are listed below:-

 

For enrolment and further details of all courses, 

please contact Tony Bundock via email at tony.bundock@chisholm.edu.au

International Training Opportunity for our Trainee!

Our Certificate 4 trainee, Michael McLachlan is set to participate in the Protected Cropping Australia study tour to America, Canada and Mexico in October of this year.

 

 

 Chisholm Trainee - Michael McLachlan

Michael's participation in this event has been facilitated by the Hydroponic Farmers Federation of Victoria. The HFF initially purchased a position on the PCA tour, and then raffled the position off at their recent conference in Mulwala, New South Wales.

Initially the raffle was actually won by Chisholm staff member Tony Bundock, who has kindly donated the prize to Michael. 

'There is no doubt that the trip would have been a great opportunity to see progressive horticulture in that region, but I strongly believe that the future of our industry lies with the younger members of the horticultural community. Michael will certainly learn a great deal on this tour which will aid him in progressing his career and knowledge' said Tony.

When first told about the trip, Michael was convinced at first that it was all a joke. 'The boss has a strong sense of humour, so I thought he was winding me up! However, I'm pretty happy to discover it's for real!' said Michael.

Michael and the rest of the PCA delegation leave for America on the 1st of October and return on the 17th of October.

As part of his trip Michael will be updating a blog showcasing all the things he will be seeing, so look out for his reports!

Greenhouse Crop Technician's Course

The next Greenhouse Crop Technician's Course is scheduled to commence in one weeks time. 

There are limited spaces left on this course, so if you want to participate, contact Tony via tony.bundock@chisholm.edu.au

Winter in Melbourne

A beautiful day in Melbourne today with great light levels. Growers in Europe would love  their winter days to be like this!

 

 June in the Chisholm Greenhouse.....

Out with the old - before in with the new

Like many growers, we are curently busy with pulling out our old Tomato crop, and will be frantically preparing for the arrival of the new plants in a couple of weeks time. 

Our fantastic Certificate III Horticulture students put in an amazing effort today to clear our larger compartment of all of the old foliage and growing slabs, before we commence the cleaning process tomorrow.

 

The task commences!

The green waste has all gone to a recycling depot, and we will be milling up our old growing slabs for secondary use as a mulch.

 

Getting there.....

 

Preparing for washing....

Our new crop will feature a wide range of De Ruiter Tomato varieties as we continue to develop the 'Living Prooof Centre' concept with De Ruiter Seeds. We'll update the blog with more pictures when the new plants are in!

 

Haifa Coffs Harbour Seminar Report

This week we ran the Haifa Fertilizer seminar in Coffs Harbour. The event itself was staged at the Woolgoolga Bowling Club which provided a first rate venue for the seminar.

Haifa's Shaul Gilan explains the issues relating to balanced fertiliser mixes

The event was well attended with 21 delegates from a range of enterprises that included Tomato producers through to Berry producers, 

The main delivery of the course was made by Shaul Gilan and Peter Anderson of Haifa, and the seminar focused on the technical aspects of fertiliser choice and use, and in particular, the need to formulate recipes that not only meet specific fertilizer values, but also provide a 'balanced' recipe in terms of +ve and -ve ions.

Chisholm's Tony Bundock provided an overview of the use of technology and equipment that is now available to growers for fertigation purposes in both protected and open crop growing.

Chisholm's Tony Bundock shows how EC rates in drip irrigation can be reduced via a radiation influence using a computerised control system

Further events are planned for Virginia, SA, Bundaberg, QLD, and a repeat seminar in Melbourne, VIC later on in the year. 

These events will be advertised via this blog site and our mailing lists.

Coff's Harbour Haifa Seminar

 

The Haifa Fertilizer seminar is now only a week away! To secure your position at this event, please register with Tony Bundock either via e mail or landline.

Greenhouse Technician's Course

This week we have been hosting 11 students from industry as they participated in our Greenhouse Technician's Course.

The participants were from South Australia, Regional and Metropolitan Victoria, and undertook the four and a half day course at the Cranbourne Campus.

The course itself is aligned to the Diploma Level National Competency - Manage a Controlled Growing Environment - and saw all of the students studying the factors that have to be considered when controlling a growing environment, and then utilizing the Priva Integro / Connext system to both monitor and implement changing climatic conditions.

Exploring the Priva system.......

 

'The course itself is limited to 11 participants so that every student has their own computer with the Priva Integro/Connext system to work with' said course co-ordinator, Tony Bundock. The hands on approach on the computer as well as access to the live cropping area makes for a great learning environment for the students' said Tony.

As well as the on site theoretical and practical activities, the participants also visited the Flavorite Tomato farm as well as observing the large range of water treatment equipment that Chisholm has within its Water Training Centre.

The course itself covers a wide range of topics and the next course is scheduled for Monday the 28th of July. Further details of our next course are posted below.