Dr Ferguson, renowned as a world authority on kiwifruit biology has been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his contribution to the kiwifruit industry in a scientific career stretching 42 years.
HortResearch chief executive, Paul McGilvary said Dr Ferguson’s award was a fitting tribute to one of New Zealand’s finest horticultural scientists. “By recognising Dr Ferguson in this way New Zealand is underlining the crucial role that he and other scientists play in our primary production industries,” said McGilvary. “It is through their efforts that many of our most valuable export products and processes have been conceived, created and successfully carried to market.”
The award marks a scientific career that began in 1965 when Dr Ferguson joined the Fruit Research Division of the then Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and continues today with his role as a senior scientist based at HortResearch’s Mt Albert Research Centre.
In 1973, with kiwifruit emerging as an increasingly important crop for New Zealand, he began collecting knowledge and understanding about the fruit’s biology. Much of this research was later included in the seminal work, Kiwifruit: science and management.
In 1981 Dr Ferguson became one of the first western kiwifruit researchers to travel to the fruit’s homeland in China. Over the next 25 years he maintained a strong relationship with Chinese biologists, helping to resolve much confusion about the plant genus Actinidia - to which kiwifruit belong. The relationship also helped HortResearch develop the most comprehensive collection of Actinidia species outside China. This was crucial to the HortResearch kiwifruit breeding programme that developed the yellow-fleshed kiwifruit Hort16A, now successfully marketed worldwide as ZESPRI™ Gold.
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