The most common gold variety, called 16A, accounts for 99 per cent of that type of planting and has shown itself to be more susceptible to the disease than green fruit.
Robbie Ellison has orchards on the east side of Te Puke, with plants about 200m from the first site confirmed with Psa in November 2010.
The past year has been a rollercoaster ride.
"Some nights you'd go home thinking, 'Yep, we're going to beat this, this is no problem' - you're 10 foot high and bulletproof," he says. "Other nights you go home thinking, 'Well, this is absolutely going to knacker us,' and you can't see much of a way through it."
Today Ellison is feeling positive.
"I think the industry will come through it and in five years' time we may even look back and think, 'We've got a stronger industry because of it.' But there's two or three years in front of us that aren't going to be too flash, I think."
Most growers were aware of how devastating the disease had been in Italy.
"Twelve months down the track ... those of us [who have] still got gold canopy, we're looking to try and get it through the harvest and then I will certainly be cutting the rest of mine off straight after harvest," Ellison says.
But though the future of the 16A variety is looking dire, it does not mean the end of gold fruit.
A new gold variety looks promising and there are a number of others on the drawing board which are probably two or three years away from commercial release, Ellison says.
"In some ways I'm quite excited about new challenges, new varieties," Ellison says. "The frustrating thing is it took us a long time to learn how to drive 16A well ... and now we've got to go through that whole process again."
Former New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc president Peter Ombler says it will be difficult to stop Psa spreading very wide over time.
"What we're trying to do is stop any silly movement, encourage growers to protect themselves with what is an increasingly good range of products that we're turning out through the research and development programme and I guess that the slightly longer-term goal is to find cultivars and/or root stocks that have a degree of more tolerance to Psa than particularly Hort16A [gold fruit]."
It pays to remember that green fruit makes up about 70 per cent of the planted area in the country and looks as if it is holding up pretty well, Ombler says.
"There's some cause for optimism that green makes it through this and there is a precedent in Italy where they do appear to be coping."
It is a little early to say it is the end of gold 16A but Ombler is unlikely to try for another crop.
"What you can say definitely at this point is that the bulk of it will be transitioned out of in the Te Puke area and probably longer term even in New Zealand."
The industry is yet to feel the worst effects of the Psa outbreak. In Te Puke in particular there will be some people who will run out of money towards the middle of the year, Ombler says.
He expects the gold harvest this season could be about 60 per cent of the previous year's.
"There were other cultivars that were going to supersede this one but none of us wanted it to happen this way and it's certainly happened far quicker and more brutally than any of us would have hoped for."
Kiwifruit Vine Health general manager John Burke says the situation looks dire for gold growers in Te Puke.
There were about 13,800 hectares of planted kiwifruit nationwide, with about 2400 in the gold 16A variety - roughly half of which was in Te Puke, Burke says.
"We're estimating at this stage that only about 40 per cent of the gold in Te Puke will actually make it through to harvest in 2012," he says. "The 40 per cent that does crop, it'll probably be their last cropping season."
However, there is some cautious optimism.
"We're starting to get a picture of the disease and a potential recovery pathway."
The goal is to have solutions to manage the disease by 2013 "and I think we're on track for that".
New Zealand-grown gold kiwifruit accounted for 21.1 million trays at exporter Zespri in 2010/11 - 21.5 per cent of its home-grown crop.
But gold orchard gate returns of $83,785 a hectare were more than two and a half times higher than for green fruit.
Zespri chairman John Loughlin says that, paradoxically, if other growing regions can be kept Psa-free then gold producers there will do extremely well.
"There'll be a shortage of supply, only the best markets will be supplied and the returns will be potentially extraordinary."
Stage one of the roadmap is to deal with failed cultivars and move forward with a narrower range, with additional tools and different practices, Loughlin says.
Stage two will involve new root stocks, more tolerant cultivars and different male plants, while stage three is to find suitable resistant female plants.
The first stage could take two years from the outbreak in late 2010, while stage three could be more than nine years.
"We are seeing a pathway forward. Now sadly for some people that will be too late," Loughlin says.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry says overall kiwifruit export volumes are expected to fall 21 per cent to 89 million trays for the year ending March 31, 2013, with returns dropping 18 per cent to $862 million.
Loughlin says the disease has knocked out a target to hit $3 billion in exports by 2025 but there is a good future - albeit a different one.
Italy has had its fourth year with Psa, virtually all gold fruit has been removed and as a consequence the levels of inoculum in the environment are down dramatically.
"This year [2011] their green crop is up 20 per cent, that's partly seasonal, but the level of grower confidence is quite high and they are [asking] where does the industry go, what is the next opportunity?"
Loughlin is feeling positive but he is not yet setting a new date to reach $3 billion of exports. "I certainly believe it will happen but ... there is the old saying, 'It's hard to think about draining the swamp when you're up to your ears in alligators'."
What is Psa?
* Bacterial disease confirmed here in November, 2010.
* First identified in Japan about 25 years ago.
* Can be spread by airborne spores or on equipment.
* Does not affect plants other than the vine and poses no risk to human health.
Where is it?
933
sites infected with a virulent strain of Psa.
776
are in the Te Puke region but also in Tauranga, Whakatane, Opotiki, Katikati, Waihi and Franklin.
28 per cent
of all orchards are affected.
51 per cent
of gold and
33 per cent
of green fruit hectares affected.
