History of Rosebud Farm
-
Title History of Rosebud Farm Date 24 Feb 2013 Source Type Web Site URL http://www.rosebudfarmnursery.com/history.html Source ID S540 Text In the 1970s, Rosebud Farm was run by nine young men (six Australians and three Americans) as an organic fruit and vegetable farm. Rich Trapnell, founder of Rosebud Farm Nursery, was one of the original nine. His sons - Nate and Digby - took over operations at the nursery, when their father passed away in 2011.
The concept behind Rosebud Farm was to create a self-sustaining property which produced its own supply of organic fruits and vegetables. In the beginning, there was no mains power supply or telephones on the property and all nine men lived in the farm's original timber homestead which had been built in 1926. The main crops grown at this time included but were not limited to avocados, paw paws, citrus crops (including oranges and lemons), bananas and macadamia nuts.
Self-sufficiency was important to Rosebud Farm and surplus fruit and vegetables were sold at what has now become the famous Kuranda Markets.
In the first decade of operation, Rosebud Farm's population swelled to 25 people living in nine separate houses on the property; its production also diversified to introduce a range of exotic fruit trees sourced from around the world.
Rosebud Farm – Introduces the exotic fruits of the world
The motivation behind the introduction of new and exotic fruit trees was to enrich the biodiversity of Tropical North Queensland's plant species.
From 1978 to 1984, Rich Trapnell, accompanied by other Rosebud Farm representatives, made over five trips to Central and South America, which yielded between 60,000 and 100,000 exotic fruit seeds. The fruit seeds were sourced from the local markets in the regional areas of these countries, and collection and preparation for transport was an interesting process in its own right.
Rich Trapnell and his Rosebud Farm colleagues would travel throughout the countryside and stay at hotels which were conveniently close to any large marketplaces. During the day they would peruse the markets for any new and interesting fruits, on finding one, they would buy quantities of same from the local residents before handing them back to the children for consumption [some of the fruits were so exotic that even Rich didn't know how to eat them!].
Once the seeds had been extracted from the fruit, they would be scraped clean, dusted with fungicide to inhibit mould and then packed into boxes for transport back to Rosebud Farm. Here the seeds would be germinated and propagated in the farm's patchwork of ever-expanding orchards, bush and shade houses.
At this time, Rosebud Farm was home to over one thousand fruit trees, including 120 varieties of exotic fruits. The more commercially popular varieties of the introduced exotics included Black Sapote, Jaboticaba, Abiu, Star Apples, South American Sapote, Mammea Americana, Mammey Sapote and White Sapote.
Fruits weren't the only species of interest during these early international forays; Rich Trapnell also noticed some of the many exotic palms which flourished in these other tropical climates. Seeds for these species also found their way back to Rosebud Farm and were planted alongside some of the property's established palms, which included the Alexander, Queen, Royal and Macarthur.
Due to the lack of telephone, much of Rosebud Farm's marketing in the early years was word of mouth. It didn't take long for the news to spread and by the early 1980's, Rosebud Farm was supplying exotic fruit seeds and seedlings to public and private nurseries and orchards around the country.
At the same time, the Rare Fruit Council of Australia was establishing itself in Tropical North Queensland. This council focused on promoting the production of 'mainstream' tropical fruits, including mangos, paw paws, avocados etc and established legislated guidelines on the sale and supply of tropical fruits. Within only a few years of this Council being introduced, the tropical fruit industry became commercialized and operated under strict guidelines.
By 1986, Rosebud Farm boasted six acres of exotic South American fruits trees and had four large shade houses. However, ironically, the very exotic nature of many of the farm's fruits made competition difficult and so change came again to Rosebud Farm and the future looked green.Linked to (1) TRAPNELL, Richard Watkins
This site powered by The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding v. 14.0.3, written by Darrin Lythgoe © 2001-2024.
Maintained by Hugh Byrne. | Data Protection Policy.