Following disruptions caused by COVID-19 over the past couple of years, the Victorian Vegetable Innovation Days (VicVID) came back in full force for 2023.
The two-day vegetable demonstration event was held on 27 and 28 April at the Butler Market Gardens in Catani. Attendees were treated to seed and agchem demonstration sites, a live spinach masterclass, and provided access to over 25 exhibitors from across the entire supply chain.
To close the event, a vegetable industry networking event took place on the Thursday evening, sponsored by Elders.
Elders agronomist Connor Steel was one of the committee members working hard to bring the event to life. Mr Steel was a main point of contact for the event’s site holders, which he said was a great experience.
“I had a lot of people contacting me for advice on how to treat issues that had popped up,” he said.
“Things like sclerotinia, downy mildew, bacterial blight, damping off, club root, onion maggot, white blister, botrytis and collar rot.
“It was a fair bit of work, but it was a fantastic way to get my name out there, and I met a lot of new people in the industry.”
In his usual day-to-day, Mr Steel works as a horticultural agronomist at Elders Pakenham. He says the days are long, but his work is rewarding and varied, as he deals with a huge range of crops, including lettuce, broccolini, herbs, corn, tree nurseries and tomatoes among many others.
“I like to start early, so I generally get to the branch at around 7:00am, to take care of anything in-branch like my clients’ programs, plans, soil or tissue tests and quotes, among other things,” Mr Steel said.
“From there, I head out on farm, and I spend the rest of the day visiting clients, either just catching up, doing crop checks on issue crops or doing full farm scouts.
“There's always something new to learn and always a new challenge to overcome and I love that about my job.”
Mr Steel started with Elders just after graduating from university, when he took up a place in the Elders Graduate Agronomy Program.
“I went through the program in 2017 where I did a six-month broadacre rotation with Craig Prior at the Roseworthy branch. From there, I transferred to the Bairnsdale branch, and worked with Noel Jansz for just over a year.
“I then took on the full-time role at Pakenham as a horticultural agronomist, where I’ve been for the last five years.”
Looking to the future of the vegetable industry, Mr Steel is keen for the ag tech sector to play a greater part.
“I'm looking forward to seeing how technology can advance in the industry to avoid things like hand-harvesting and packing,” Mr Steel said.
“The vegetable industry’s biggest challenge at the moment is labour, so this would be sure to save growers a significant amount of time and money in managing teams of people for these roles.”
Mr Steel said events like VicVID were integral for the advancement of these aspects of the industry. “To have had all the current technologies, varieties and products available to growers in one place, was pretty special.”
