RNZ: Country Life

Plant and Food Research is trialing a radically new way of growing trees. It is training them to grow like candelabra.

Yoshiaki and Kyoko Sato refuse to add anything to their wine. The former Tokyo bankers now live in Central Otago where they craft wines from only organically grown grapes.

The country's transformed in the past week from cruisy autumn to wet and cold. Kiwifruit harvesting still has a long way to go.

Jakob Malmo is a vet working in Gippsland, Australia and says M. Bovis must be very carefully managed but farmers there have learned to live with it.

Horse Power, Training Trees, Wine Making the Natural Way, Living with Mycoplasma Bovis and the Regional Wrap.

The Human v Horse event is a marathon over steep hill country with a twist - it's a race between two legs and four.

Julie Brownlee's Neudorf Valley sheep milking operation supplies milk to Thorvald, a company that produces sheep's milk cheese and yoghurt in a factory right next to Julie's milking shed.

Horowhenua asparagus grower Geoff Lewis is setting up tunnel houses to grow strawberries. It's part of his plan to provide year-round work for his seasonal workers.

It’s a baptism of fire for new Southland  Fed Farmers Chairman Geoffrey Young with the M. bovis outbreak, a swede seed mix up and debate over Environment Southland's revised water and land plan.

It is getting wet underfoot in Taranaki so farmers feel they have had enough rain. Rams in Marlborough have completed their work on hill country farms and sheep scanning is underway.

Human V Horse, Ewe Milk Me, Geoffrey Young from Federated Farmers , Horowhenua asparagus grower Geoff Lewis and the Regional Wrap.

Young backpackers on bus tours are making a tangible difference in the struggling Bay of Plenty town of Murupara. Local tour operator Nadine Toe Toe's motto is 'Change a town through tourism'.

Laura Douglas has set up a tourism venture in Kingston that gives visitors to Queenstown the chance to experience a taste of the country-side.

Blueberries, kiwiberries, boysenberries, loganberries... well, there might soon be another one to add to the mix – the snowberry. Trials are underway to see if there's potential for a commercial snowberry crop in New Zealand.

Warm weather has blessed the North Island this week, and while the South Island's generally been lovely too, the temperatures are dipping quickly down south.