An ongoing drought has brought an unexpected reprieve to kiwifruit growers battling Psa in New Zealand’s Northern Island.
The dry weather has stopped the spread the vine-killing disease.
Fruitgrowers Federation Northland director, Rick Curtis, told RadioNZ growers where fearful of another outbreak when the virulent strain of Psa was reported in several orchards around the Kerikeri area last spring.
However, all bar one of the cases were false positives, with no cases reported since.
While the drought may have stemmed the spread of Psa, industry sources have also pointed to the dry conditions for an accelerated drop in production volume.
Alan Dawson of Aongatete Coolstores expects his company to pack just under 3m trays of kiwifruit this year, well below the 3.2m trays they packed in 2012 and the 3.5m trays in 2011.
David Brasell of DM Palmer NZ, which markets JM Bostock’s proprietary gold variety KiwiKiss, says the drought has also affected fruit size.
“The overall KiwiKiss crop is larger, however due to the drought affecting us and most of the North Island the average fruit size is smaller,” Brasell said.
