The abundant combination of sunshine, soil and water has powered north Queensland's horticulture industry on to become one of the most significant food-producing parts of the country, and the world.
North Queensland’s soil profiles produce a staggering diversity of crops including papaw, papaya, potatoes, Astrawberries, sweet corn, citrus, coffee, eggplant, beans, passionfruit, peanuts, melons, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, cocoa and tea.
Early in 1880, Acclimatisation Society of Queensland vice president LA Bernays conducted an extensive survey of far northern localities to ascertain progress and prospects of the cultivation of tropical economic crops under trial by various people.
His report, published in parliamentary papers for 1880, found sufficient well-established and thriving plants of a wide range of the exotic species to indicate they could be grown successfully in the north Queensland tropics.
He listed many species including avocados, bread fruit, bananas, cashews, custard apples, coconut, citrus, date plums, figs, guavas, jack fruit, jujube, longans, mangoes, monstera, olives, pomegranates, rambutan, star apples, cocoa, coffee, nutmeg, pepper and sundry other economic plants and introduced timber species.
The rise of Bowen as a tomato capital came from a decision by some growers to plant a cash crop following a cyclone which devastated the mainstay citrus crops in about 1903.
Mangoes and bananas are synonymous with the north.
More than 120 years ago, the then Bowen harbour and customs officer GF Sendrock obtained the region’s first mango fruit.
He kept the seeds and gave them to a local farmer, William Lott, to grow on his property Valley Orchard and so an industry was born.
Chinese workers from the goldfields established banana plantations in the 1880s around Cooktown, Port Douglas, Cairns, Innisfail and Tully.
The now defunct tobacco industry, established in the 1920s, fueled the Mareeba economy for more than 75 years but came to a halt in 2004.
People power has also driven the sector with significant names etched into the horticultural history.
Among them are tomato pioneer George Kent; one of the first commercial banana growers Stanley MacKay; 1960s horticultural adviser Noel Meurant; and 1860s market gardener Henry Muller.