Friday, March 29, 2024

Soggy soils plague East Coast fruit, veg

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Wet weather and lack of sunshine take their toll.
NZ Apples and Pears chair Richard Punter says ‘lack of sunshine is a concern for fruit colour’ – and ‘the weather is not our friend right now’.
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Vegetable growers on the river flats around Gisborne have been saturated for spring and summer and are heartily sick of the problems caused, the chair of the Gisborne Growers Association, Calvin Gedye, says.

“The prolonged wet weather and lack of sunshine are taking their toll and crops are not growing as they should,” Gedye said.

“We have produced perhaps half of what we planned, being both plant failures and lack of bulk and quality.

“Even the weeds look sick in some of the crops and we haven’t been able to side-dress nitrogen.”

Longer-growing vegetables like cucurbits, tomatoes and egg plants haven’t grown properly and the fruits are unformed.

After a La Niña season last year, Gedye said fellow growers were joking that they have had five winters in a row suffering a chronic lack of sunshine and cooler-than-normal temperatures.

Gisborne growers’ problems might not have an impact on national vegetable availability, because industry giant Leaderbrand has diversified geographically and is using a 10ha glasshouse.

Growers of field crops for processing have been impacted by the near-continuous soil saturation and inability to use machinery.

Ex-tropical cyclone Hale did not flood the Gisborne flats but every 10mm of rain that falls tops up field saturation, Gedye said.

But “Gisborne growers will survive; they always have”, he said.

About 50 kiwifruit growers on the East Coast have nagging problems from continual wet weather and lack of sunshine, local Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated representative Tim Tietjen said.

Some have lost up to 10-20% of vines through waterlogging and these will have to be replanted, probably with a Bounty rootstock that is more resistant to wet feet.

Fruit is sizing well, because of the additional moisture, but taste will be a concern without plenty more sunshine, Tietjen said.

Growers on the Gisborne flats have not been able to work machinery for spraying or orchard maintenance.

Tietjen had not heard from two growers further north in the Tologa Bay and Whāngārā districts as to the extent of flood damage.

Chair of NZ Apples and Pears Richard Punter said there is no question that the weirdness of the summer is going to produce mixed results for Hawke’s Bay growers.

“Lack of sunshine is a concern for fruit colour, and we have rather too much water everywhere in the orchards,” Punter said.

“The weather is not our friend right now.

“Growers are concerned that the bad outcome for last season now has the potential to be two seasons in a row.”

Citrus NZ spokesperson Matt Carter, a grower and marketer of citrus and persimmons in Gisborne, said so far the fruit has been unaffected by storms and sizing is good in the lead-up to the start of harvesting in autumn.

However, trees are putting out a lot of new, soft growth – a haven for white fly, mealy bugs and thrips – and growers are battling to get insecticides sprayed because of wet ground conditions.

Fungicides to combat skin diseases are also overdue.

Gisborne is the centre of citrus growing, with 120 orchards supplying Carter’s company Fruit Fresh for export and the local market, and up to 250 growers out of New Zealand’s 300.

Harvesting of mandarins and lemons begins in mid-to-late April, followed by oranges, grapefruit, tangelos, limes and persimmons.

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