The last few weeks have been tense ones for the New Zealand kiwifruit industry, but alongside the stress of dealing with the country’s kiwifruit canker outbreak is some good news; next year’s harvest is expected to be larger than that in 2010.
While the season is still in early stages yet – pollination of green kiwifruit is underway this week, and pollination for the gold variety has recently finished – but with the weather good so far, the trend of the past few season will see production increase for 2011, reported the New Zealand Herald.
“The extent of orchards with the infection is less than we would normally see in a seasonal variation so we still anticipate strong production,” said Zespri’s director of corporate and grower services Carol Ward.
“And, fingers crossed, if growing conditions are good then we will see increased production coming through.”
Kiwifruit marketer Zespri tallied its annual exports at 98.5m trays in its 2009/10 annual report, a slight dip on the year before due to hot weather.
While headlines have been full of news about the Pseudomonas syringae pv actinidiae (Psa) outbreak in New Zealand over the past few weeks, the disease has still only been found in around 1 per cent of the country’s kiwifruit orchards.
“So we have over 99 per cent of the industry which absolutely needs to continue to produce a great crop and we absolutely anticipate that pollination will continue as it needs to,” Ms Ward said.
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