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Edition 29

👋 Hey TropicalBytes family, welcome to this week’s edition of Q.U.I.P.S.!

As the fastest-growing subtropical farming community out there, we're thrilled to be your BFF (Best Farming Friend), saving you hundreds of hours by unearthing hidden gems like:

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In Today’s Email:

• A Quick Circle Back to The Hot Topic of GIS 🛰️

• Revisiting Our Time with the Smit Brothers: A Gold Mine of Wisdom 🥇

• Link Access to the Full Deep Dive Interview 🔗

• Macadamia Proteoid Roots: The Hidden Tell-Tale of Soil Health 🌱

It's that time again where we venture down memory lane…

In this edition we're talking: irrigation/water management in macadamia farming. 

We revisit our treasure trove, an absolute gold mine of insights from our time spent with the Smit brothers; Theunis and Armand. Trust us, you'll want to savour every nugget of wisdom in this one!

But first, let's circle back to a hot topic we uncovered in Editions 25 & 26: GIS in Agriculture.

Cast your mind back to when a community member asked us this question:

"You guys mentioned GIS in this week’s newsletter. I’m on the hunt for a user-friendly, won’t-break-the-bank GIS software that works well in SA. Got any tips?”

The quest for answers was tough, but as always, our TropicalBytes community came through. Just last week, an insightful reader sent us an email that hit the nail on the head:

"I did not get a chance to respond to the previous editions on GIS software. As you have discovered there are two issues here. One the lack of knowledge of this tech and two the lack of willingness to share what some are already using to generate revenue themselves.

GIS specialists tend to keep their tricks up their sleeve. I have worked in GIS on a basic level for years to supplement my Land Surveying but only as a tool. By far the best app at the moment is QGIS. This is open source and free and has been well supported with updates and plugins from other users.

Farmers, especially in SA, are going to be at pains to step into the GIS realm if there are additional costs involved. With QGIS they can at least start to learn about it and play around with their farm. GIS is a lot more than a mapping tool though and the real power comes with analysing and interpreting the data. This will be very tricky to do if you do not have the knowledge. Hence, I believe the expertise of a GIS consultant will always be needed.

With the rising costs I don’t see the farmers making the next step required to get GIS “compliant”. Maybe if they play with QGIS and find a GIS consultant to subcontract on a once off basis to assist them with setting up the database and the methods of updating they can then run with it going forward.

Watch out, though – many consultants use paid software such as ESRI and not QGIS so that solution will tie you into always using them, unless you buy and maintain your own ESRI software which is costly.

So, I would suggest to try QGIS out, then when the limit of your own willingness to learn is exceeded, find a consultant who uses QGIS and is willing to simply offer a once off service to set you up further.”

🔗 For those interested in trying out QGIS check it out here → (link)

A massive shoutout to our incredible community members for sharing such pearls. You are truly what make TropicalBytes and our community so valuable! 🌱

Missed your chance to chip in during our previous editions? We're all ears, always!

Share your brilliance with us:

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• 💬 Dive in and leave a comment

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Now, let’s dive into today’s piece! 🚀

Information ℹ️

Revisiting Our Time with the Smit Brothers: A Gold Mine of Wisdom 🥇

When the topic: “Irrigation/Water Management in Macadamia Farming” begins to circulate, Theunis and Armand Smit come to mind.

Young, energetic, enthusiastic and way too intelligent for us!

It's with a bittersweet note that these two incredible industry players have left our shores for Australian orchards.

What we share here today is just a teaser of the ocean of knowledge uncovered in our deep dive interview.

Here are 18 standout insights from our time with Theunis and Armand:

1. Water is a symphony conductor in the environmental orchestra; every factor plays its part.

2. The challenge isn’t just water delivery; it’s about supply consistency, quality, and the right irrigation approach.

3. A tree's life story—its age, variety, health, and productivity—dictates its thirst.

4. Weather patterns shift with a distinctive trend towards drought and/or erratic rainfall. Soft, gentle summer rains seem to have been replaced by angry, flashing floods, commanding a strategy shift in water resourcefulness.

5. In the world of domesticated agriculture, it is important to realise that mac trees remain wild at heart, i.e. skillful survivalists. They neither need, nor want, our pampering.

6. South African orchards are only a mere 2 generations down from the wild Australian ancestors that grow in the forests. Unlike citrus, for example, that has been “domesticated” and grown as a commercial crop for about 30 generations (of trees).

7. Embrace the wisdom of 'less is more' to farm not just sustainably, but profitably.

8. Citrus to mac graft point comparison enlightens a unique perspective on water transportation within the plants.

9. The hidden tell-tale of soil health lies beneath, in the presence of proteoid roots.

10. Watering wisely means less water more often. Shorten your irrigation cycles ACCORDING TO YOUR SOIL TYPE. Focus on keeping the fibrous root zone damp.

11. Timing is everything—irrigate when the tree is operating i.e.: mid-to-high-humid mornings, or nights if necessary. [see graph below]

12. Ever wondered why mature leaves on a mac tree never wilt?…

13. High evapotranspiration does not always call for increased watering—counterintuitive, but crucial.

14. Humidity over heat—macs will manage in high temperatures as long as it is in a highly humid environment but they will not thrive in low humidity, even if the temperatures are moderate.

15. Less water can mean more crop—counterintuitive findings from the Smit's research. A Nelspruit “JAFF” was mystified by the results he saw right in front of him; the tree that was denied all water (had a cover placed over it so that it did not even get rain water) produced the best yield. The one that received only rain was second and the fully irrigated trees – the worst.

16. It’s not about the vessel for water delivery, but the precision of the when, where, and how much.

17. 'Deficit Irrigation' and how to achieve thriving yields with half the water, pinpointing the when, where, and how of strategic irrigation.

18. Surviving drought: “cut the tree in half, mulch the cuttings, and place that over the root zone.” Sounds extreme and very simple but the logic is all there – reducing the canopy by half will reduce the water requirement by half. Mulching the roots will heighten their ability to forage more effectively.

👉 Want more? Check out the full story with the Smit brothers here → (link)

Picture 📷

Proteoid Roots: The Hidden Tell-Tale of Soil Health

Depending on the health of your tree (and your eyesight 🤓) you may also find root clusters, more scientifically referred to as proteoid roots.

They are typical of the Proteaceae family, to which the macadamia belongs. They are an extreme adaptation to phosphorus-limited environments. These are specialised feeding roots – the ones that take water and nutrients into the tree.

NB: These roots do not develop in phosphorus-rich environments. Macadamias are susceptible to phosphorous toxicity and these roots will disappear in the presence of excess phosphorus or anaerobic conditions (i.e. overwatering or water-logged soils.

The lack of these cluster roots limits the tree’s uptake of P and it also inhibits the uptake of water and other essential nutrients – so the presence or absence of these roots is a good indication of your soil health in general.

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That’s a wrap folks!

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Until next week,

Happy farming, deep learning, and warm smiles! 🌱

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