Auckland Botanic Garden pilots Plant Pass

Auckland Botanic Gardens nursery produces plants for the popular Garden as well as parks and facilities across the Auckland region.

With local challenges like myrtle rust and kauri dieback, the potential for the nursery to spread infections throughout the super city is a real risk. Curator Bec Stanley says Plant Pass Biosecurity process has helped her team to operate safely.

“We’ve been practising biosecurity for four years now, so the scheme has not been a massive change for us. What is different is that we now write processes and protocols down. Until we went through this pilot we had no nursery manual, you just go through an audit then run around and do everything the audit requires.”

As one of the Plant Pass Biosecurity pilot nurseries, the Botanic Gardens was able to assess the scheme’s practical relevance.

“I did look on the time as an investment rather than an intrusion. I set down two hours a week with staff. I followed them around and documented what they did. It did help them understand some processes better as it clarified the reasons why we did things the way we did.”

Bec says the scheme will improve the nursery’s productivity because systems have been streamlined.

“We are now tidier so there is a better process flow. We have one area for quarantine, another area for sprays etc. We have a big clean up at the end of each day so every morning everything works better and faster. We don’t lose equipment anymore and all equipment is left clean and ready. We have compartmentalised things a lot and upgraded equipment including benching, scoria levels, footbaths and foot scrubbers. In the process of introducing better hygiene there’s fewer plant diseases and so plant health improves.”

Bec said yes she would recommend other nurseries go through the scheme because the more nurseries which do, the better it reflects on the industry.

“The advice I would give others is that just to take it one step at a time. We started this process five years ago. This level of change doesn’t happen overnight but you can do it in a manageable way.”