Peter Beaven, ceo of growers’ association Pipfruit New Zealand, has warned that volume in early varieties of the country’s apple crop may be down on forecasts.
“Initial reports are that the crop has excellent colour and taste, but volume in early varieties may be down a little on the pre-season estimate of 15.5 million cases,” said Beaven.
First arrivals of New Zealand Cox in the UK this week were hailed by one Gateshead wholesaler as “the best for at least a couple of years” in eating quality.
Meanwhile, voting has been delayed on a compulsory levy proposal for New Zealand’s top-fruit growers.
They were meant to vote on the levy this month, but the country’s ministry of agriculture is recommending the vote take place in July once the harvest is complete so that it is based on production from this season’s crop.
Legislation requires voting to be based on the previous 12 months’ production, so a vote before July would have meant growers guessing what their production-weighted vote should be.
Beaven said his organisation has budgeted on receiving NZ$3.6 million in levy funding this year of which NZ$2.2m will go directly on research and development.
Of this total, some NZ$900,000 will be invested in the commercial breeding company Prevar with the remainder of the R&D budget going to other projects.
Government funding will also be forthcoming for all of these projects.
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