Asian vegetable industry in 
East Gippsland

THE FULL REPORT

This is a summary of the full research report—Developing a Sustainable Asian Vegetable Industry in East Gippsland. A photocopy is avaliable from RIRDC on (02) 6272 4539. The authors, Paul Daly and Bruce Tomkins, can be contacted at the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment,
phone (03) 9210 9222.

East Gippsland farmers are establishing an Asian vegetable industry following a three-year project involving the Rural Industry Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC).

The project developed from the need to diversify from over supplied traditional vegetable crops and an opportunity to tap the $3.5 billion Asian vegetable export market.

The RIRDC project

• market research;
• an extensive literature review;
• trial production of Asian vegetables including Chinese cabbage, broccoli and chives, baby bok choy, choy sum and Japanese pumpkins;

• field trials to determine viabilty;
• and evaluation of post-harvest storage and shipment methods

Over the past three seasons they have sent 100 seafreight containers of Chinese cabbage to Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong countries which are potentially Australias biggest vegetable export markets as collectively they import more than $3.5 billion in fresh and processed Asian vegetables annually.

Market research

In their report to the RIRDC, researchers Paul Daly and Bruce Tomkins from Victorias Institute for Horticultural Development say the market window for Australian-grown Chinese cabbage in Asia is from late March to early November.

There are about 700 growers of Asian vegetables in Australia, with production in 1993/94 estimated at $50.5 million ($40 million for the domestic market and $10 million for export).

Over half was from NSW, which serviced nearly 70 per cent of the domestic market. In terms of exports, Western Australia had the greatest production value at $4.5 million (45 per cent).

Victoria produced $4.2 million worth of Asian vegetables for the domestic market in 1993-94 and $0.2 million for export. But no Asian vegetables were grown commercially in East Gippsland before this project began in 1994.

It was funded by RIRDC following the closure of a vegetable processing plant in East Gippsland. The domestic fresh vegetable market was oversupplied and market research identified opportunities for diversifying into Asian vegetables.

Discussions with supermarket chains revealed that Asian vegetables were the fastest expanding fresh produce category but that supplies were limited. Meetings with exporters confirmed their desire to source Asian vegetables from the East Gippsland region, primarily Chinese cabbage.

Other Asian vegetable crops also showed potential but farmers decided to focus on Chinese cabbage because it was a new crop for East Gippsland, seed was readily available, most growers already grew Brassica vegetables and Chinese cabbage was being grown successfully elsewhere in Australia. Also there was a strong domestic market for Chinese cabbage, it was in demand by exporters and published reports indicated it had good storage potential for seafreight export

Literature review

The review details the best varieties to grow, planting and crop management techniques to improve cabbage head size and ways to avoid flower stalk development (bolting) and other disorders such as gomasho (brown and black specking of normally white midribs of the cabbage heads) and tipburn (browning of the margins of young inner leaves).

Also, it identifies bacterial, fungal and viral diseases and how to control such infections, and common pests such as aphids, the Diamondback moth and the Cabbage White butterfly.

The review reports on good post-harvest practices such as pre-cooling and rapid establishment and maintenance of desired temperatures, gas concentrations, relative humidity and adequate air circulation for prolonged storage. It also says that more research is needed into special packaging to improve storage and market quality.

Trial production

The trial objectives were to:

• determine how successfully cultivars could be grown during autumn and winter;
• evaluate the length of the growing season and identify limitations to extending production into winter; and to

• determine the relative storage behaviour of cultivars and identify possible limitations to storage.

However, it proved susceptible to a field disorder necrotic flecking which continues to develop in storage. This affects internal tissues and is not evident at harvest. At present the disorder appears to be limited to early plantings but will have to be confirmed in subsequent trials continuing under the Access to Asia project funded by the Victorian State Government and the RIRDC.

Studies continue to determine whether newly released cultivars show a high level of tolerance to bolting so that plantings can continue into late autumn to service a particularly lucrative market niche in Asia in late August to October.

The cultivar showing most potential for this to date is the Wong bok type Cream. However, marketable yields decrease from around 90 per cent to 60-70 per cent as a larger proportion of heads in late plantings fail to heart properly.

The Access to Asia project is compiling the costs of producing late planted Chinese cabbage to determine whether the higher prices obtained in Asia are economically viable.

Summary of field characteristics of cultivars at harvest
 

Summary of incidence and expressiono of internal disorders in heads of each cultivar from planting two after storage and simulated shelf life
 

Summary of the mahjor disorders causing the loss of quality at harvest
 

Storage and shipment evaluation

Chinese cabbage heads were placed in controlled atmosphere containers for nine weeks, were assessed for marketability, trimmed and placed in storage for six days to simulate shelf life. Results were promising as Chinese cabbage stored up to four times longer than Chinese broccoli depending on the storage temperature.

Work continues with other Asian vegetable crops on whether they respond favourably to modified atmospheres and are suitable for export.

Asian vegetable production is now well established in East Gippsland through work initiated in this project and the RIRDC is confident a sustainable industry will develop.

Summary of incidence and expressiono of internal disorders in heads of each cultivar from planting two after storage and simulated shelf life
 

Cultivar	Disorder	No expression	Low levels of expression	High levels of expression
Hector	Insect damage  PPN	89.3 96.4	3.6 0.0	7.1 3.6
Kasumi II	Insect damage	70.8	25.0	4.2
Yuki	PPN Insect damage	83.9 64.5	9.6 32.3	6.5 3.2
Treasure Island	Tipburn PPN Insect damage	84.0 88.5 65.4	4.5 0.0 26.9	11.5 11.5 7.7
WR Green 60	-	-	-	-