The Mt Ponsonby Project
The Mt Ponsonby project
Mt Ponsonby is a central focus of our little business. We hope that it will become an exemplar for management of this type of wild harvest system and ultimately build capacity in the pepperberry industry.
Mt Ponsonby is one of the best natural stands of pepperberry in Tasmania
Located in the Southern Midlands of Tasmania is a mountain top known as Mt Ponsonby (800m). Mt Ponsonby has one of the best natural stands of pepperberry in Tasmania! We recently bought this mountain with the intention of managing it as a wild pepperberry orchard. We hope to become industry leaders in the management of this type of wild harvest system.
It is a remarkable feature of the pepperberry industry that it is still dependent on wild harvest sites such as Mt Ponsonby. Efforts undertaken to establish horticultural orchards are being undertaken but are not sufficient in scale to replace wild harvest any time soon. Moreover pepperberry’s growth requirements might be more complex than what is on offer in a monocultural orchard setting – efforts to establish orchards in this manner have been met with only partial success and appear to be very much individual site based. Therefore we at Wild Pepper Isle are heading in the opposite direction – a deeper embrace of wild harvest.
The food forest
vision
Our vision for Mt Ponsonby is for a food forest: A managed forest system that is more reliably productive and demonstrably sustainable while still being forest and still being wild.
Mt Ponsonby is a wild place. It is completely forested with thousands of trees of diverse species, with pepperberry growing as an understorey on the most elevated 40 ha. There is also a rich fauna with notable animals – quolls, Tasmanian devils and Wedge tail eagles.
Why is there so much
pepperberry here?
Early in the 20th century pepperberry would have been just another understorey plant in a forest dominated by huge eucalypt trees. Extensive forest logging in the 1980’s opened up the canopy and allowed other plants to grow. Fortunately for us pepperberry loves disturbance. The forest was left to regenerate and pepperberry came to dominate. It is sad to reflect upon the forest and tall trees that were lost. Yet it is also true that this dense pepperberry forest wouldn’t exist if it were not for logging undertaken years ago.
What does managing a food forest look like?
There are many things we must consider in managing Mt Ponsonby. Some factors are typical to any orchard such as: fertility management, pruning and pest management. Then there are other factors more particular to the forest environment including: track building and fire risk management. Two factors are worth special mention:
Firstly, we have a problem with the seasonality of production. Some years there is literally tonnes of berries on Mt Ponsonby but most years there is none at all. Some early work indicates that there is a native moth pest working its way through our pepperberries during flowering. We’ve got a lot to learn on this front and any non-spray solution will be a huge challenge.
Secondly we are operating in a forest environment with high biodiversity. It is very important to us that we look after this environment and do not reduce biodiversity for commercial gain. We’ve began work on this front by enlisting the services of the Tasmanian Land Conservancy who have done a us a great service by characterizing the flora and fauna of our property in a report – through their Land For Wildlife program.
It’s early days for us on Mt Ponsonby. We’ve got a big project ahead of us! We’ll keep you posted.
Oh check out our little video below – it’s our announcement that we bought the mountain.
