New Zealand growers are keeping a careful eye out for more frost over the coming weeks, after dodging serious damage from frosts last night and a week ago.
With apples reaching the end of flowering and kiwifruit just starting, the potential for damage is significant, but so far the two frosts don’t seem to have had a major impact.
“I don’t think there’s been much damage, or none severe enough to have a big effect,” CEO of Pipfruit NZ Peter Beaven told Fruitnet.com.
“There’s no evidence there was damage to crops yet, but it’s also too early to really tell. We’re just past full flowering for most apple varieties now, but it’s not until the fruit forms that we can really see the damage.”
Risks for apples in the country’s Nelson and Hawke’s Bay growing regions has been exacerbated by flowering a week to 10 days early, explained Mr Beaven.
The frost last night in the Western Bay region narrowly avoided doing damage, according to a report from the Bay of Plenty Times.
“We dodged a major bullet,” president of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Peter Ombler told the Times.
“If we had a big frost last night, there would have been a huge amount of damage, particularly to green `kiwifruit` orchards, which are still largely unprotected against frost. It could have been potentially quite devastating - millions and millions of dollars of damage.”
The cold weather has also reportedly slowed the harvesting of New Zealand’s avocado crop.
Another storm is on its way in another few days time, according to Mr Beaven, bringing snow down to 500m.
“There could easily be more frost events to worry about,” he stated. “It’s been one of those springs with lots of temperature variation, unlike last year.”
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