I’m officially a horticulturist in training. I’ve just finished week two (of around a million before I’ll actually get a diploma) and have discovered that … I COMPLETELY LOVE IT!!!

In typical style, I am overdoing it. I received some recognition for prior study I did with the Royal Horticultural Society in the UK (well, if one is living there, how can one resist?!) so I booked in for a couple of second year classes after work on Wednesday nights (9:30pm finish) in addition to the full day from 8am til 5:30pm on Thursday.  Of course, it is worth the exhaustion.

The facilities are state-of-the-art and second to none. The horticultural school has just moved to a new, purpose-built campus and we are the first year to get to use them. Apparently a significant amount of the education funding for the past few years has gone into the technical colleges and it shows. Among the features are 4 new greenhouses, each built for different stages of the plant development cycle. They have light sensors that extend and retract shade cloth, open and close vents, and switch on and off air-conditioning and humidifiers, to keep the light levels and environment to the programmed levels. Enormous under-cover sand beds are for the landscaping students to build their structures. The campus is carbon-neutral, with rainwater tanks collecting on every roof to be recycled back into the bathrooms, and even grounds and carpark runoff collected into a dam at the bottom of the campus. Around the dam is to be landscaped into two grass tennis courts and a 4 hole short golf course, just so that one can be ripped out and redeveloped each year by the turf, irrigation and landscape students. There are 6 raised vegie patches that are around 30m (100ft) long and a new pergola-covered area built specifically for the 6-monthly plant sale where all of the propagated plants are sold off cheaply to the public. I am suitably impressed by the whole facility.

There have been a couple of other pleasant surprises. My lecturer for Plant Protection (Weeds, Pests and Diseases) – a subject I had not expected to be particularly gripped by – is passionate about the subject and utterly fascinating. It makes such a difference learning from people who love what they teach. He keeps a couple of infested trees in the back of his garden so he can study the pests and bring samples in to show the class.

Ash Whitefly (Siphoninus phillyreae) Photos: Courtesy of P. DeBarro CSIRO and NSW Agriculture

Last Wednesday night, we discussed Ash Whitefly (siphoninus phillyreae). This is a relatively new species in Australia, appearing in Adelaide in around 1998. Most whiteflies devour herbacous plants, making them a greenhouse pest but largely manageable. The Ash Whitefly however prefers to dine on woody shrubs, particularly the family Oleaceae trees, including ash (Fraxinus spp) and olives (Olea spp). It also likes apples, pears, plums, hawthorn, pomegranites, citrus, magnolias and crepe myrtles.   This makes it a significantly bigger problem that the ordinary whitefly, and given the weedy spread of olives through the Adelaide Hills, the Ash Whitefly has similarly spread rapidly and threatens the fruit industry. It has also been found in the regions around Canberra and central New South Wales.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have done a great deal of research into the parasitic wasp, Encarsia Inaron, which preys on the pupa of greehouse and silverleaf whitefly.

Encarsia Inaron - Photo: Courtesy of Cornell University

They’ve found that this little wasp isn’t too picky over which kind of whitefly it likes to inject its eggs into and ran a trial release in South Australia to test its efficacy in containing this new pest. Our lecturer noticed that the numbers in his garden in Canberra also seemed considerably better than last year and has his suspicions that it had since been released in the ACT/NSW regions as well. He brought a couple of branches in to put under the microscope for us and sure enough, there were dozens of shells of pupa with little black holes drilled into their backs and a couple of tiny but well-fed wasps. His enthusiasm for these little creatures was infectious and I found myself thinking encouragingly of what used to be considered the nemesis of backyard kingdoms by children around the country.

My next class is tonight – a week passes by so quickly – and I can’t wait!