I hope you and your families had a safe and enjoyable Christmas, and you’ve recharged the batteries in preparation for another big year in the kiwifruit industry.
This edition we bring you a special report on new varieties; everything from storage to taste. We look at shrivel in Gold9, provide some Gold3 case studies and offer a wrap of the Momentum conference. We look at the Men’s Discussion Groups being run to help growers look after themselves and their families during Psa, and we catch up with the team at the Te Puke Research Centre.
Braden Hungerford was one of the first growers to face the media when Psa was discovered in New Zealand. Braden had to remove 12 hectares of vines from his orchard in Te Puke at a time when it had just started producing a crop. Two very busy years on and Braden and his family (wife Rachel, and children Josiah, 6, Anika, 4, Luka, 2 and Georgia, 9 months) are determined to find the positives as they focus on the future.
French orchard manager for GARLANPY, Grégory Renaud, timed his Bruce Stowell work exchange with the New Zealand spring. He felt spring offered the greatest learning opportunities; watching Psa progression and canopy development for the Zespri new varieties.
Since December 2010, a month after Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa) was first discovered in New Zealand, the development and progression of the disease has been closely monitored in selected kiwifruit orchards. Initially, little was known about how Psa would behave in the New Zealand environment. Through regular and detailed mapping and monitoring of symptom development within canopies, we aimed to determine whether disease incidence increased during the summer, and if leaf symptoms progressed to cane or trunk symptoms. Further aims included determination of carry-over of disease from one season to the next, assessment of relationships between orchard management practices and disease development, and understanding the relationship between disease progression and climatic conditions.
