Compo cash sought for failed kiwifruit

TAURANGA - Kiwifruit orchardists growing the doomed tomua - a cultivar bred to give New Zealand a competitive edge with early fruit for Northern Hemisphere markets - want to be paid compensation for axing their vines.

Zespri International has decided to stop exporting tomua, bred nearly 20 years ago as a green kiwifruit maturing weeks before the conventional hayward cultivar.

But growers say they are unlikely to take chainsaws to the vines until they know what compensation package the industry is offering.

Katikati grower Jack Crosby said orchardists should not cut out their vines until they knew what was on offer.

"Once our vines have gone we've lost our bargaining power," he said.

The industry's 122 tomua growers, with 166ha planted in the fruit, have contracts with Zespri which guarantee them a 50 per cent premium on green fruit until 2007.

That package was offered to encourage planting of the new variety in the early 1990s.

Zespri's decision did not surprise most growers, though many had been expecting removal of some vines rather than all.

At a meeting in Katikati, attended by 50 North Island growers, there was general acceptance that the fruit had little future and an anxiousness to have compensation issues resolved so new vines could be grafted.

Sally Gardiner of Kiwifruit New Zealand told the growers Zespri would stop selling tomua fruit from next year.

HortResearch, which had developed the fruit, and had plant variety rights over it, had been asked to carry out trials to see if the storage problems could be overcome, but these had not been successful.

Zespri had commissioned an independent review of the fruit by Dr Jane Harman of Unitec, Christchurch, which served only to confirm the industry findings.

"We will form a working group to develop a support package for growers and assist growers to switch to green or gold kiwifruit," said Sally Gardiner.

David Watts, chairman of the Tomua Growers Group, said a meeting had been organised to decide who should represent growers on a working party next month to discuss their options.

Zespri's product supply manager, Stuart Abbott, said tomua had failed to live up to expectations.

It had performed badly both on quality and price.

Customers did not like the look of the fruit, though it tasted great. It developed low-temperature breakdown, which discoloured it and caused uneven ripening.

Tomua had a shelf life from harvest to consumer of four to six weeks, not long enough to get it to Europe and too tight a timeframe to export it into closer markets.

Zespri new product development manager Steven Thomas said surveys among Japanese customers last year and this season were particularly damning.

"In 1999, 58 per cent of those surveyed said the fruit was poor or very poor and this year 69 per cent did not like it. Many said it looked like Chilean fruit."

- NZPA