Flood silt chokes plants but camp ready to go

ACTION: Whanganui River Top 10 Holiday Park owner Jeannie Marshall is happy it's business as usual again after the flood clean-up. PHOTOS/ BEVAN CONLEY 100715WCBRCFLO01

A Wanganui nursery's production has been severely limited after the June floods all but destroyed their cropping field.

Bristol Plants and Seeds owner Joy Bristol says a blanket of silt covers their bottom field up to a metre deep in places, and there is no way of clearing it before this summer's crops are scheduled to be sown.

"Because the silt is so wet, we have to wait until it is fully dried before we can get a tractor down there," she said.

"We'll most likely do that some time in the summer."

The owner of the business for 37 years, Mrs Bristol said it was lucky most of the field was empty, after she had debated whether to put seeds in over the winter or not.

The damaged field, roughly 2 hectares, is home to over 300 heritage apple trees, most of which Mrs Bristol hopes will make a full recovery.

"A lot of them are covered in grass and other debris.

"They should be okay but it will just take them a while to recover."

She said there were financial repercussions with having the field out of this year's rotation.

"Insurance doesn't cover crops which are unable to go ahead.

"We were also going to put a couple of home kill cows down there too over the dormant season, but obviously we can't do that now."

Mrs Bristol said it is not all doom and gloom though, as silt holds a lot of natural fertiliser.

"That should definitely help in the long term, it is just the short term we're worried about."

Mrs Bristol was overwhelmed by the amount of help that has been offered since the floods.

"Lots of friends have been offering to help with working bees and things like that."

Further down the road, the Whanganui River Top 10 Holiday Park is happy to be back in full swing after repairs to their lower tent field have been completed.

Owner Jeannie Marshall said while 12 of their riverside units were still to undergo minor structural repairs, that was less than one-third of their total apartments.

Mrs Marshall said while they would require a new pool pump after water damaged the present one, they had been relatively lucky.

"Its going to be costly with the pool but on the whole the damage wasn't actually that bad."

The campground is expected to be fully repaired and ready in time for yet another busy summer.

"It couldn't have happened at a better time, to be honest," she said with a laugh.