Above Nursery team training under direction of Robin Haussmann, Nursery Manager.
Kubu Nursery is new to offering macadamia nursery trees for sale, but it has been producing high quality trees for more than six years for its own orchard planting at Kubu Group. We asked one of its cofounders, Jon Stanfield, to tell us why they consider their nursery trees to be the ‘Gold Standard’.
Checking nursery monitoring and control computer in the pump room.
We started Kubu Group in 2007, to produce macadamia nuts. As with most people entering this industry, we saw an excellent opportunity for making a LOT of money, with the only apparent downside being that you have to wait seven years before your trees deliver a full crop. I say “apparent” because it turns out there are plenty of other problems that can come your way.
It was only in 2014 that we discovered some key issues with our orchards, which meant our trees were three years behind. Also, we learned that several of our trees were the wrong cultivar from what we had ordered, and worse, we could not make money from them. With plans to significantly expand our orchards, we decided to start our own macadamia tree nursery, to control quality, and so maximise our future harvest income.
Since then, we have achieved what we consider to be the Gold Standard in macadamia nursery tree and nut crop production. This has required new infrastructure, following well-planned orchard maintenance, and ensuring we have a strong and diligent team, together with proven consultants.
GO FOR GOLD
Moving three month old Beaumont clone from tunnel to shade net area.
For each of the last three years, Kubu Group’s established orchards have delivered more than six tons a hectare of Gold Standard quality macadamia nuts. This weight is dry-in-shell, 1.5% moisture content.
This is more than 2.5 times the industry average for South Africa of 2.3 tons a hectare, and positions Kubu Group in the top 5% of macadamia producers.
To help our customers ensure their new trees receive the optimal support from the point they leave us, we provide complementary advice so that they can generate their own Gold Standard yields. We want to support the South African macadamia industry, as we all then benefit. Key areas we advise on, include:
Land preparation – tree spacing, planting-hole dimensions, foundational soil supplements.
Irrigation – delivery system, planning, use of technology, soil moisture management.
Pruning & Foliar spray – frequency, techniques, micro-nutrients, varying with age and annual cycle.
Soil support – fertiliser, mulch, soil and leaf analysis.
Pest control – scouting, spray programme, spray cart selection, pH management.
Nut processing & storage – sorting, curing, use of technology, energy efficiencies, cool storage.
Consultant support – we have a team of trusted, highly-proficient consultants who support us on an ongoing basis.
It costs a lot of money to get a macadamia orchard established and into production. This makes it so incredibly important to ensure you use the best quality nursery trees. Do this, and based on 2019 prices, a Gold Standard revenue back on farm from each hectare of your mature orchards is R500k p.a. You can even shave a year off the time it takes your orchards to reach maturity.
SELECT THE BEST
Checking four and a half month old Beaumont clone (growing in a 4L bag).
In our nursery, we clone carefully selected trees, taken only from our high-performing orchards. From there, we use the latest technology to closely monitor and control the growing conditions, including a fertigation system to deliver micronutrients in the optimal balance and at the ideal pH and EC.
This would mean nothing without our diligent and well-trained staff, led by the macadamia nursery guru, Robin Haussmann, and supported by our nursery agronomist, Lindi Grobler. With a Gold Standard quality production of more than 200,000 trees a year, you are in safe hands.
We are confident that we will deliver to your expectations, and ideally exceed them. We hope that when you look out over your orchards in years to come, you will identify the trees you planted from Kubu Nursery as lines of gold stitched into the earth, both because of the quality of the trees themselves, and for the superior returns they generate for you.
MACADAMIA TREE STOCK
Below is a summary of the trees that are currently available :
Oct 2020 – 6,000 Beaumont
Nov/Dec 2020 – 24,000 Beaumont
Dec/Jan 2021 – 20,000 Beaumont
Apr/May 2021 – 30,000 Beaumont
May/Jun 2021 – Up to 50,000 of any other cultivar
In addition to the above, we can supply to further tree orders of up to 120,000 trees. For which 8-9 months are required to cultivate Beaumont trees and 11-12 months for any other cultivars.
Kubu is able to deliver nursery trees to anywhere in South Africa.
To learn more about Macadamia trees and place your order, visit www.kubu-group.com
