Thousands of fruit trees go

ROSE HARDING
Thousands of fruit trees are being pulled out every week in Hawke's Bay as growers seek Government aid to remove them.
However, growers wanting help to leave the industry will have to wait until a new Government is formed because the caretaker administration has no authority to spend the $4 million Pipfruit New Zealand seeks.
Pipfruit New Zealand asked for the money after surveying grower members about their plans following poor returns. Apple prices last month tumbled 22.8 per cent to be 25 per cent lower than in August last year.
Chairman Ian Palmer, of Nelson, said growers who intended to carry on in business were concerned that orchards abandoned by growers would be reservoirs of pests and diseases if not removed. Some growers have said they cannot afford to pay the $2 a tree to have their orchards removed.
Mr Palmer said the money would be for growers wanting to leave the industry, not those who wanted to plant other varieties.
There are believed to be only a few abandoned orchards in Hawke's Bay because growers here have more land-use choices than Nelson growers, where council subdivision size rules mean that option is closed off to many.
Process crop growers such as J M Bostock and Brownrigg Agriculture are looking for larger blocks of land to lease and offer a tree-pull service.
Aaron Bourke, who with brother Mike operates a tree-removal business in Hawke's Bay, says they are "flat out" pulling whole blocks of apple trees for squash and onion crops.
"We are pulling 2000 trees a day, mostly braeburn, royal gala and pacific rose varieties."
Some estimates say 100,000 trees will go, or two million cartons of export fruit. About a million of those will be from the Hawke's Bay crop of about 10 million cartons and more than 18 million nationwide.
Most of what is being pulled is not being replaced, although big players such as Mr Apple and Johnny Appleseed are replacing older varieties with newer ones on dwarf rootstocks for closer plantings.
The Bourkes are also removing older varieties of stonefruit trees and older and diseased grapevines. Aaron Bourke said at least one grapegrower was pulling out vines to make room for more sheep as the wine industry felt the effects of strong competition and a high dollar.
The Bourkes have four staff, three loaders, a digger and excavator on the go.
"We had to buy a new digger."
Mr Bourke said they pull the trees and bulldoze them into piles for burning. None went for firewood.
Blair Hislop, of The Green Machine, said he was removing apple and stonefruit trees. The biggest block was 15ha, to go into cropping. However, much of the area he was pulling was to be replanted in new varieties.
He estimated he had another month's work in front of him. J M Bostock's squash manager, Kevin Richardson, said their tree-pull service applied only to orchards 5ha and bigger.
It was too late to plant onions this year so the ground they had cleared was going into squash. Mr Richardson would not say how much cleared orchard land J M Bostock was planting.