New Ground Product Popular
The Wormtech Report No. 8          

Wormtech Ground, the new product released in May this year, has outsold Wormtech Canopy by a large margin in its first month.

“Frankly, we’re surprised and delighted” said managing director Greg Walker.  “We’ve simply taken our well known liquid vermicast product, and added 10% humic acid to boost microbe activity for soil application – something our customers were often doing themselves already.  For improving soil health, it’s a better product for a better price – a ‘win-win solution’. 

“Most kiwifruit growers are only just gearing up after a slow harvest this year, so we did not expect to sell much yet.  Fortunately our customers in the wine industry in Marlborough have embraced the product and are using Ground Probe Aerators to inject Wormtech Ground into the soil during decompaction.  By August we expect to be flat out with orders for the Hi-Plan programme in the kiwifruit sector” said Greg.  

Wormtech Hi-Plan is a combination of a winter injection of 100 litres per hectare of Wormtech Ground by Ground Probe Aerators, and a series of Wormtech Ground and Wormtech Canopy sprays from late winter through to mid-summer.  By using the programme on the whole orchard, the grower obtains a $400/ha reduction in the combined cost of the treatments. 

Regular customer results

Growers may be interested to see the latest season results for the growers featured previously in The Wormtech Report.  Being a late season we only had data for the Kiwistart growers as we went to press.

Ian Weir of Paengaroa was featured with his over $100,000/ha OGR in 2004, and while he hoped for 13000 trays this year, is happy with his size and taste.  Peter Bennett made Kiwistart at altitude 140m up No 3 Road in Te Puke again this year with good size and DM.  Both are long-standing Wormtech customers.  The Barnetts in Bethlehem were using Hi-Plan for the first time this season as a ‘broad-spectrum’ boost for their vine health and crop quality.