Humidity and storms hurt Rotorua fruit and vegetable growers

Fruit and vegetable suppliers in Rotorua are feeling the pinch, while growers across the North Island struggle with the humid and cyclonic conditions this summer.

Growers of green vegetables have seen crops dying in the ground, as humid conditions make it easy for disease to spread.

Mamaku Blue Blueberry owner Anne Frost said they had lost 50 per cent of their crop to weather events this summer.

"First there was the wet spring, then the ex-cyclones. It's been very difficult to harvest. The fruit is fairly fragile and it splits."

She said it had been a dramatic season, including winds of 150km/h and 150mm of rain in the storm in early January.

"Our salary has been halved but we still have the same expenses."

Fenton Quality Produce owner Nick Patel said the weather this season had had a big effect on his business.

"A lot of broccoli, cauliflower, baby spinach, lettuce crops have been hit. Over the last five or six weeks it was really hot for them, and then they got sudden rain and went yellow overnight."

He said that meant he had to pay growers more for each item, and the items were in smaller supply.

"We have ordered 40 crates of some items, but could only get five or 10 crates instead. That's why we have seen cauliflower prices at $8 or more," he said.

"This is the first time I have seen this in 12 years here."

Rotorua-based Lux Organics owner and head gardener Jenny Lux said last summer was worse for her.

"We experienced horrendous humidity and rain around the time of the Edgecumbe flood."

She said rotting and aphids were the major problems this summer and they were caused by humidity.

"That creates shortages for customers."

Lux said lettuces had been hit particularly hard, but the humidity was even a problem for their tomatoes in greenhouses.

She said high winds took out a third of their zucchini crops this summer, and the winds in the storm at the start of January took down a 16m beam in one of their structures.

Lux said because they were organic growers, they invested heavily in physical protection for their crops rather than chemical protection.

"We need to control our own microclimate. We use a lot of netting and shade cloth but the more extremes we experience, the harder that job becomes."

Lux said she blamed the weather extremes in the last few years on the effects of climate change.

"I try not to change the prices, I've just had to inform people there would be longer waits for some produce."

Several readers on the Rotorua Daily Post's Facebook page had noticed the increased price of cauliflower in particular.

One said they had seen one for $10 in a supermarket, leading one to suggest frozen alternatives.