Friday, March 29, 2024

Green kiwifruit volumes falling

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A difficult spring flowering, wet conditions to Christmas and a touch of Psa have all contributed to a slide in expected Green kiwifruit volumes in the coming harvest.
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Bay of Plenty growers were reporting mixed levels of fruit loading on vines, ranging from reductions of as much as 50% on last year’s bumper harvest to minimal drops in volume.

Despite some growers claiming Psa to have re-asserted itself with a vengeance, it appeared the effects were limited to specific at-risk orchards bearing the brunt, rather than any wholesale increase in the devastating disease’s presence.

But one grower described how Psa seemed to have “turned turtle”, shifting from the tolerant new SunGold variety to have a greater effect than before on the Green Hayward vines.

Bay grower Stu Moss said he had seen crops hit with losses of up to 50%, largely because of the disease.

Kiwifruit Vine Health chief executive Dr Barry O’Neil said Psa would always be a problem requiring management but tended to affect specific orchards.

“We have seen its effect wane since we have had drier weather.

“There are two very different stories this year, though, for crop levels.

“The Gold crop is looking pretty good, possibly back strongly on last year’s very good crop but still solid. The Green crop is significantly down on last year, by up to 25%.”

Kiwifruit Growers chairman Doug Brown said that was attributed to the Green variety having a tough flowering last spring when there had been a distinct lack of winter chilling to encourage bud burst.

That combined with lower sunshine hours since then reduced the quality of Green buds. He also felt any production this year might be lower because of vines “taking a break” after two very high yielding seasons.

Last year the industry reported a harvest of 90 million Green trays and 25m trays of Gold, back to pre-Psa volumes.

A Zespri spokeswoman said it was still very early in the season to estimate total volumes accurately.

She confirmed Green flower numbers and therefore fruit volumes were down for the 2017 season.

“However, forecasts move a lot during the season and we generally don’t know accurate volume forecasts until well into harvest – also, the fruit is sizing well on the vines.

“Taking all this into account, we’re still looking at the second-largest crop in Zespri’s history.”

She pointed to each season being different with climatic factors affecting volumes differently each year.

“Contributing factors include low autumn sunshine this year, a warmer winter and significant increases in average yield over the past three seasons.

“We are continuing to roll out our five-year market development strategy and over the five-year plan our strong total volume growth will continue as SunGold volumes increase to meet consumer demand around the world.”

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