Bruce Rhodes of Whanganui has been growing kiwifruit for over 40 years.
This week I was blown away to find that our humble kiwifruit actually originated in Whanganui. If you had asked me in a quiz, I would have said Tauranga ... and how wrong I would have been.
This furry little fruit started its life known as the Chinese gooseberry and despite the name change to kiwifruit, it is not native to New Zealand.
In 1904 seeds were brought to New Zealand by Mary Isabel Fraser, who at the time was the principal of Wanganui Girls’ College and had been visiting mission schools in China. In 1906 they were planted by a Whanganui nurseryman, Alexander Allison, and there was great excitement when the vines first fruited in 1910.
Because the fruit had a slight gooseberry flavour, the public started calling it Chinese gooseberry, when in fact it is not at all related to the Grossulariaceae family to which gooseberries belong.
During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, New Zealand started exporting the fruit to the United States, and because it was still being called Chinese gooseberry, this turned out to be an absolute marketing nightmare for Turners and Growers.
During a Turners and Growers management meeting in 1959, Jack Turner (part of the management team), suggested a name change to kiwifruit. This idea was promptly accepted and later became an industry-wide name.
The Bay of Plenty town of Te Puke was where New Zealand’s kiwifruit industry began and it markets itself as the “Kiwifruit capital of the world”. Because kiwifruit is also grown in China, Italy, Iran and Chile, most of New Zealand’s kiwifruit are now marketed under the brand name Zespri, partly as a way of distinguishing “Kiwi” kiwifruit from the produce from those other countries.
Bruce Rhodes of Whanganui is a well-established grower of kiwifruit, having started planting shelterbelts in 1978 ready for kiwifruit vines, which were planted two years later. He presently has 7.5 hectares planted in vines, consisting of 5ha of green kiwifruit, 1.5ha gold and 1 ha red. This year is his first pick of the red kiwifruit and it is destined for the Asian market.
The three varieties have their own characteristics. The green is slower-growing, harder to prune and the producer gets a return of about $5.50 a tray. The gold is a faster grower, easier to prune, more productive and the return is $9-10 per tray. And then there is the new red variety, still in its early days, with smaller fruit and presently returning $17.20 a tray. It is grown earlier than green or gold, so is more susceptible to frost damage.
I asked Bruce what changes he has seen in the kiwifruit industry over the past 40 years. “Changing from growing kiwifruit on bars to pergolas has added 20 per cent more production, and made pruning so much easier,” he said.
“In the early days of multiple exporters which dropped the price, growing kiwifruit was uneconomical, the best thing was when Zespri came on the scene and we had just one exporter representing the producer.
“PSA has caused a lot more expense for growers as they have to spray more regularly, rules and regulations pertaining to putting down water bores have become much harder, with so much red tape putting off new people wanting to get into the industry.
“Plus if you don’t have a regular and stable workforce, this becomes a problem”.
Luckily for Bruce, he has had the same group of workers for 15 years now and only has to rely on employing a few locals in the busy season.
When it comes to changes in the packhouse, Bruce says, “It is the place where the biggest changes are happening, with limited workers, more automation is definitely in the pipeline.”
The kiwifruit industry has certainly faced some bumpy years in recent times and adverse weather has added to the pressure. The industry has also had the usual pressure of a limited workforce, and growers of the green kiwifruit have had to endure poor returns.
Farmstrong has joined forces with NZ Kiwifruit growers to produce new resource material to manage the ups and downs of the kiwifruit industry. Check out Live Well, Grow Well on the Farmstrong site.