EARLY LIFE NEVILLE HOWCROFT

EARLY LIFE – NEVILLE HOWCROFT

I was born Neville Henry Simco Howcroft in Queensland Australia on the 30th of September 1938. Post WW2, I moved around the state with my parents. Ireceived my education in Queensland, from schools at Bundaberg, Bowen, Proserpine, Airlie, Hamilton Island (by correspondence and developing further there my love for natural history, forests, orchids, insects, in fact flora and fauna in general), then to Thornborough College, in Charters Towers and finally at the Technical College Mackay. At Mackay, I was interviewed for employment in The Queensland Forestry Department, securing a position as a trainee in forestry survey and assessment. I was based at Byfield plantation located in the coastal Yeppoon area in the Rockhampton region. This work experience took me into the central inland eucalypt forest resources near Theodore and Taroom. Other duties included research trials, establishment of species and yield plots measures, general plantation establishment and forest management. I enrolled at the School of HTE (Queensland University), for part time studies in Agricultural Science subjects, Science in Plant life, Science in Animal Life, Science of Soils and of Growing Agricultural crops, gaining passes and certificates in these subjects. I trained further in forestry at Byfield for approximately 3 years. I was then promoted to the Forestry Research and Tree Breeding section, at Beerwah and Beerburrum for 6-8 weeks further training and practical work experience at Beerwah and Beerburrum. This covered plantation silviculture and tree breeding and seed production. The next 7 years, I continued at Byfield in the Forestry Research section, undertaking species investigations and trials with Pinus and seed tree selection, vegetative reproduction, clonal orchard development, breeding and progeny trials which included the production and testing of hybrids.

Goodbye Australian orchids.

Photo credit Dick McCarthy.

Welcome to PNG orchid land.

Spathoglottis bulbosa Schltr Kui Morobe Province. Photo credit N Howcroft.

Dendrobium finisterreae Schltr Morobe province.

Photo credit N Howcroft.