Kim Honan, ABC North Coast reporter and person behind Year of the Locavore, visited Kahawa Estate to get some insight into the subtropical coffee scene and pick up some premium Kahawa Estate coffee for her quest to eat local in 2011.
Kim spoke with Jos Webber from Kahawa Estate coffee, a Northern Rivers coffee grower and President of the Australian Subtropical Coffee Association. Kim discussed the recent medal win for Kahawa Estate at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Coffee Competition, met the farm dogs and checked on the progress of the biochar research trials.
Jos notes that they are starting to see some results from biochar research on his plantation.
“Trees without compost or biochar aren’t performing as well as the rest of the crop,” says Jos.
He says two different types of biochar were put on his seedlings 18 months ago as part of Industry and Investment NSW trials.
“There seems to be quite a difference in the way the two chars are reacting in the soil, in that the rice hull has almost formed a blanket and there has been very little activity in that, whereas with the slightly coarser biochar made from poultry litter, there’s been a lot of activity in that, and a lot of that is now being incorporated into the under-layers of the soil.”
