Alisdair Curtis, of Cottage Farm, picking Clutha Gold apricots. He said he expects to get seven or eight crates this season, compared to the 70 to 80 he normally gets. Photo / Warren Buckland
Alisdair Curtis, of Cottage Farm, picking Clutha Gold apricots. He said he expects to get seven or eight crates this season, compared to the 70 to 80 he normally gets. Photo / Warren Buckland
Hawke’s Bay apricot growers have lost as much as 90 per cent of their crop, leaving supermarket shelves and fruit stalls bare of the vibrant stone fruit as the growing season comes to a close.
Horticulturalists of all kinds have been hit by heavy rain this summer, which has particularlyimpacted stone and pip fruits during what would normally be their most productive months.
Visits to Hawke’s Bay supermarkets since New Year’s have shown the effects - the only New Zealand-grown fruit below $6 per kilogram at New World Hastings on Tuesday was grapefruit ($4/kg), with no apricots to be found.
Alisdair Curtis, of Cottage Farm, said he normally produced 70 to 80 crates per variety of apricots in a season, but he was likely to only produce six or seven crates per variety by the end of this season.
“It has been quite a difficult season because when they were out in flower, it was cold, blowy, and the bees didn’t really get out,” Curtis said.
“The peaches and nectarines were down as well a little bit, but generally, all the other stuff was as normal because the weather was more settled when they were flowering.”
He said he only had two-and-a-half crates of the first apricot variety he grew this season, Royal Rosa, and they sold out within 30 minutes.
He picked his Trevatt variety on Tuesday afternoon and planned to harvest his Clutha Gold variety in a week.
“As soon as we put the ‘apricot’ sign outside the front of the shop there, people will come in just for those because of the scarcity of them.”
Hawke’s Bay Fruitgrowers' Association president Brydon Nisbet said there had been very low pollination for apricots throughout the season, which was now nearly over. Photo / Warren Buckland
Hawke’s Bay Fruitgrowers’ Association president Brydon Nisbet said there had been very low pollination for apricots throughout the season, which was now nearly over.
“Just a huge shortage of stone fruit, full stop. You go to the supermarket, you can barely find anything,” Nisbet said.
He said apples were one fruit crop in the region that was tracking well at the moment.
“At the moment, the crop load on the apples seems good, and provided the weather plays ball, we hope we have had a good harvest.”
He said multiple industries were affected by the performance of the fruit industry in the region.
“Especially the industrial side, tractor places and that. There have been people cancelling tractors and things like that because the last season wasn’t that great.”
Many fruit crops of different varieties were significantly affected by rain this summer.
The Strawberry Patch in Havelock North was earlier forced to shut on Christmas Eve after heavy rain flooded their paddock and ruined their strawberry crop.
Billy Scott, the owner of Scott’s Strawberry Farm, earlier said berry fruit had been affected nationally by the weather system over the North Island.
Hugh Findlay, co-owner of Cherry Gold Orchard, earlier said he expected he would lose about half his harvest of cherries this season to rain.
