MACADAMIA grower Phil Zadro stopped counting his macadamia trees many years ago but he knows he has eclipsed the one million mark.
The 84-year-old has properties in Bundaberg, Childers, Northern NSW, Mt Bauple, South Africa and most recently Emerald and produces 7500 tonnes of macadamias annually with large areas of new plantings set to gradually begin producing too.
As the world’s largest macadamia grower, Mr Zadro has no plans to slow down and is constantly looking at new ways to improve his planting techniques and locations to expand.
Challenge could very well be Mr Zadro’s favourite word and was the reason he decided to purchase a 4500 hectare cotton farm in Emerald and transform it into his next ‘macadamia land’.
Work is currently underway planting the first 600 hectares of trees on the property and Mr Zadro said it would be two to three years before he would know if the area was suitable for macadamia production.
Mr Zadro had strongly considered choosing a location in Mozambique or Swaziland but said he couldn’t go past the strength of the Australian industry.
“We are 95 per cent certain that Emerald will be a good area to grow macadamias but we need to fine tune some of those challenge that we have in there - predominately environmental challenges,” he said.
“Heat, water, stress, basically they are the challenges.
“The land is very suitable to macadamias.
“Emerald has some of the best soil in Australia to grow anything provided you have water.”
As speakers at the Food Heroes dinner in Bundaberg pointed out, Mr Zadro doubted the potential of Bundaberg for growing macadamias when growers first launched the industry in the 1960s.
But he soon caught onto their bright idea and was one of the first corporate investors to shift his large-scale commercial macadamia farms north to Bundaberg.
Globally Australian product is viewed with a lot of respect and Australia is very well poised to expand the industry.
- Phil Zadro, World's Biggest Macadamia Grower
Now with trees in varying locations and weather conditions across Australia, there are different practices across each of Mr Zadro’s properties to suit the climate.
But one thing remains the same – innovation and using the latest practices are a must.
He is the first to admit that even after about decades in the industry it’s only now that he is beginning to realise how much they have to learn about macadamias.
“Technology comes easy to us, it’s mainly how to grow macadamias that is the most difficult part and this is what we are wrestling with,” he said.
“It’s only been around for possibly 40 or 50 years as opposed to other products such as grapes or wheat or corn so there is a lot of information around for them but macadamia, we are still writing the book.”
Four or five years ago average yields across Mr Zadro’s properties were three to three and a half tonne to the hectare.
Now the average is up to about 4.5t/ha with aspirations to expand yields even further to 5 to 5.5t/ha to the hectare.
“Globally Australian product is viewed with a lot of respect and Australia is very well poised to expand the industry,” he said.