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Horticulture NZ president Julian Raine.
ABOUT 40 pipfruit and kiwifruit growers in a concentrated orchard area of Motueka to Riwaka, west of Nelson, were affected by the Guy Fawkes-night hailstorm, says HortNZ president Julian Raine.
Many cases are now in the hands of insurance assessors and the true extent of damage won’t be known for probably another month.
“I suspect it will range from total write-offs to those able to be thinned out so it depends on each orchard, where it was and how the hail hit them,” he told Rural News.
Raine had not heard reports that staff had already lost their jobs, but says many affected growers will still have to thin their crops.
“You can’t just walk away because you can’t overload the trees otherwise you will swing the thing into biannual bearing. You’ve got to take off some of the crop load. If trees become overstressed they will only bear a light crop the following year.”
Although there is never a good time of year for hail to hit, Raine says at least it occurred before thinning rather than, say, a week before harvest – so some orchardists will have a chance to recover.
Most of the pipfruit crop, which comes from Hawkes Bay and other parts of Nelson, were not hit by the hail, so the national crop isn’t affected. “But it is devastating for a small number of people,” Raine says.
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