Rose Harding
It's been a less-than happy Christmas for Hawke's Bay fruitgrowers as another hailstorm swept across the Waiohiki and Pakowhai areas yesterday afternoon.
The mid-afternoon storm was the third since October's Labour weekend. The storms have probably cut the apple crop by 500,000 cartons.
Apple and kiwifruit grower Dave Mackie said yesterday's
storm would add another 10 to 20 percent to his reject apple bins at harvest time.
His kiwifruit was protected by a canopy but he could see pinprick bruises on his apples. He said he finished thinning his braeburn crop about 2pm in the sunshine and the hail arrived at 3pm. Tim Averill in Allen Road said the ground around their home had been white with hailstones, but apple trees on his property did not appear to be damaged.
Barry Jones, in the Tukituki Valley, near Havelock North, said he watched as the storm went around him. "It was hair-raising." He said he was in full production picking apricots and a hailstorm would have been a disaster for summerfruit growers.
Hine Wilson, who grows boysenberries in Pakowhai Road, said it had rained heavily but the hail had missed the property. "The pickers came inside while it rained and then went out again."
Yesterday's hailstorm was just the latest in a long line of weather challenges for Hawke's Bay's primary producers.
For pastoral farmers it was floods earlier in the year. The area around Porangahau and Central Hawke's Bay was especially hard hit with stock losses, a lot of land damage from floods and slips and blocked or washed-out roads.
The late winter, early spring season had been cold and wet, delaying grass growth and leaving stock hungry. Spring and early summer had been characterised by blow-torch westerly gales which had lifted topsoil, burned off pasture, toppled trees and caused fruit rub on apples.
Many tonnes of plums ready for harvest ended up on the ground.
The topsy-turvy weather has held up hay contractors as the winds made it unsafe to rake hay and rain made it too wet to bale.
* The sudden hail storm sent golfers dashing for shelter at the Napier Golf Club at Waiohiki. Among those on the course was an English couple who had come to New Zealand to escape the winter chills.
