Back to Australia and on to New Zealand

Back to Australia and on to New Zealand

On Friday 2 November we flew out of Dar es Salaam on Air Madagascar for Tananarive, Madagascar. There was no suitable scheduled onwards flight until the following Tuesday, so the time was spent on some local touring of the city which had numerous monuments, historic buildings and sights of significance especially from the French colonial era. Our onwards flight was by Air France to Mauritius for an overnight stop, then on Qantas on Wednesday 7 November via Perth and Melbourne to Sydney arriving early on Thursday 8 November 1973 . The only sleep possible was on the aircraft overnight because we took off again from Sydney for Auckland New Zealand at 8.00 AM and from Auckland on a connecting Mount Cook Airlines domestic flight to Rotorua. Once again jetlag set in!

From 12 to 17 November was spent at the meeting of IUFRO Working Part S2.01.5 Reproductive Processes on “Vegetative Propagation of Forest Trees” in Rotorua. There were 28 participants from New Zealand, Australia and PNG as well as from USA, Japan, Korea, West Germany, Denmark, Brazil and Spain. All sessions were plenary. Topics included: Physiology - The Biochemistry of Rooting (4 papers) Physiology - The Physiology of Rooting (4 papers, including one of mine

Views from our hotel during our stopover in Mauritius on the way back to Australia 6 to 7 November 1973.

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) Vegetative Propagation for Plantation Establishment - A. Prospects and Problems (4 papers) Vegetative Propagation for Plantation Establishment – B. Differences Between Cuttings and Seedlings (4 papers) Vegetative Propagation of Conifers – A. Grafting (2 papers)

5 Davidson J 1973 Some physiological aspects of rooting cuttings of Eucalyptus deglupta. Meeting of IUFRO Working Party S2.01.5, Rotorua, New Zealand.

Vegetative Propagation of Conifers – B. Cuttings (5 papers) Vegetative Propagation of Hardwoods – A. Other Genera (9 papers) Vegetative Propagation of Hardwoods – B. Eucalyptus (5 papers, including three of mine

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The Use of Cuttings to Provide Genetic and Other Information (3 papers) Tissue Culture (4 papers) Of particular interest was the paper by Peter Burgess on vegetative propagation of flooded gum, concerning his work with APM at Coffs Harbour Australia on E. grandis and assisted by Lindsay Pryor as consultant to APM. The representative from Brazil (W F Suiter, University of São Paulo) was particularly interested in the work on vegetative propagation of E. deglupta in PNG and E. grandis in Australia.

During the discussion following my presentation on incompatibility symptoms in grafts of E. deglupta, I showed a slide illustrating an incompatible graft (left). This sparked some debate as to whether what was happening was an aberration of the phloem or xylem occurring at the cambial layer. No clear-cut opinion emerged from the discussion by the delegates.

On Saturday 17 November, we flew Rotorua to Auckland on Mount Cook Airlines. Duty travel ended and recreation leave began at this time. On Sunday 18 November 1973, we flew Auckland to Brisbane, departing at 8.00 AM on Air New Zealand Flight TE80.

6 Davidson J 1973 Incompatibility symptoms in grafts of Eucalyptus deglupta. Meeting of IUFRO Working Party S2.01.5, Rotorua, New Zealand; Davidson J 1973 Techniques of grafting Eucalyptus deglupta. Meeting of IUFRO Working Party S2.01.5, Rotorua, New Zealand; Davidson J 1973 A technique for rooting seedling cuttings of Eucalyptus deglupta. Meeting of IUFRO Working Party S2.01.5, Rotorua, New Zealand.