Peter is a third-generation farmer based in tropical Far North Queensland, where he's now been farming for 40 years. He grew up on a sugarcane farm near Tully, in Far North Queensland, but decided he didn't want a job that meant too much time on the tractor and became an electrician by trade.
Later, Peter was inspired by visiting tropical orchards and decided to make the career change into farming, happily leaving working in small spaces in 40°C plus heat behind. Peter and his wife Alison own a block of land amongst the rainforest in East Feluga, in the World Heritage-listed wet tropics. They started out growing small crops, such as pumpkins and melons, and the business evolved to grow rambutans, mangosteen and taro, before moving solely into tropical tree crops.
Now, Peter and Alison grow tropical fruits such as dragon fruit, pomelo, durian and rollinia, and are regularly trialling new exotic fruits from rainforests around the world.
After two highly damaging cyclones, Peter and Alison explored ways to protect their trees, and trialled and introduced trellising into their orchards. They primarily use 'Tatura' trellising, which was developed for stone fruit in southern Australia to help improve yields, but it has since been adopted by other farmers in cyclone-affected regions. They're world leaders in using trellising for cyclone protection, with Peter travelling as far as Hawaii to share his findings with other farmers in cyclone-prone areas.
Peter and Alison are passionate about the high quality of their produce, sending delicious fruit to wholesale markets around Australia.
