Hawke's Bay Pipfruit
Model Description
Hawke's Bay is the largest pipfruit-producing district in New Zealand, exporting 50% of New Zealand's pipfruit crop. Most orchards have a mixture of pipfruit varieties and are run by an owner/operator.
Years described as 1999/2000 refer to the financial year ending 30 June 2000. Years described as the 2000 season, refer to fruit harvested in 2000. Revenue from one season's crop is split between two financial years. For example, the advance revenue for the 2000 crop comes into the 1999/2000 financial year and the deferred revenue for the 2000 crop comes into the 2000/01 financial year.
Over the last few years there has been a trend for owner/operator properties to become larger, either through leasing or purchasing. Previously, the Hawke's Bay pipfruit model orchard had an area of 8 planted hectares. In this report we have increased the model size to 10 planted hectares to reflect the district trend.
The 2000 season also had a significant change, with growers now being paid for their export fruit at Free Alongside Ship (FAS). This means growers are now responsible for two new cost items, packaging and coolstorage. These costs were previously paid by ENZA on growers' behalf. The average FAS costs in 2000 are $4.70/export carton. Therefore, readers must be extremely careful when comparing 2000 returns with previous years, as the 2000 and 2001 returns are quoted at FAS.
Table 1: The Model in Summary 1999/2000 |
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| Area | 13.0 | ha |
| Effective planted area | 10.0 | ha |
| Production area 1999/2000 | 9.2 | ha |
| Production area 2000/01 | 9.2 | ha |
Key Points
- The Hawke's Bay model orchard made a net disposable loss of $69,700 in 1999/2000, the largest loss in the model's history. Deferred revenue from the 1999 crop was $39,000 for the model orchard, down 63% on forecasts carried out in June 1999.
- The Hawke's Bay crop for 2000 was a record, at just under 10.3 million export cartons - an increase of 16% on the previous year. The actual crop packed is likely to be 9.7 million tray carton equivalents (TCEs) and of this just under 1 million will be exported by companies other than ENZA.
- With on-shore restructuring, growers are now responsible for all costs to the ship's side and receive payment from ENZA accordingly. Harvest and post-harvest costs of $9.86/carton now account for 71% of cash orchard expenditure.
- Grower confidence is at an all time low.
- The future of a single desk producer board continues to be debated.
Physical Factors
Climate
The 1999/2000 season started off extremely well with a relatively warm spring (September to November) and good rainfall in November. As a result, growers were confident of carrying larger fruit numbers and still achieving good fruit size. Unfortunately. the period during and immediately post-hand thinning deteriorated, with heat units and Growing Degree Days (GDD) well down on annual averages through the period December to March (see Table 3).
As a result, average fruit size was well down for most varieties. The later varieties also lacked good colour development, which was probably due to overcast conditions and a lack of day/night temperature variation leading up to harvest. November rain also contributed to some black spot infection although, there were also concerns that some of the fungicides were not totally effective. Sunburn losses were only moderate due to the milder summer conditions. Hail losses were minimal, with only a few orchards in central Hawke's Bay affected.
Source: Crop Health Services using Lawn Road "Orchard 2000" weather station
Production
Overall Production
Hawke's Bay produced a record crop in 2000, estimated to be 10.3 million export TCEs. In an effort to manage the crop down, ENZA directed approximately 600,000 TCEs to juice, resulting in a packed crop of 9.7 million TCEs. The export crop compares with 8.6 million in 1999 and 6.3 million in 1998. (The 1998 crop was reduced due to widespread sunburn and water core.) Of the 9.7 million, 0.93 million were exported through independent export consent holders. Detailed results for the major varieties follow.
Royal Gala
Royal Gala has replaced Braeburn as Hawke's Bay's largest volume variety in the year 2000, accounting for 4 million TCEs, or 40% of export. Once ENZA became aware of the very high volume of Royal Gala, up 20% on estimates, it decided to juice 'C' grade air stored product and count sizes 120 and below.
Royal Gala was of excellent cosmetic quality this year, although fruit size was eventually too small at 120 count average, down from 113 in 1999 and 105 in 1998. Chemical thinning strategies worked well, and GDD up to the end of November were very good. This resulted in most growers undertaking minimal hand thinning. Unfortunately, the heat units for the rest of the season were low and, due to fruit numbers being high, crop loads were excessive for the season, resulting in small fruit size. Growers were also conscious of keeping costs down and wanted to avoid high hand thinning costs. Black spot was a greater problem on Royal Gala.
ENZA have recently announced that the FAS value of Royal Gala will be down to an estimated $15.47/TCE. This is well down on the $13.71 paid in 1999, as the 1999 payment was net of FAS costs. The average FAS cost this year is $4.70/TCE.
There are still large volumes of Royal Gala to come on stream as young trees mature, and growers are worried that the increasing volumes may be more than the market can handle. Royal Gala is a very important variety in the Hawke's Bay.
Cox Orange
The Hawke's Bay planted area has been drastically reduced over the last two to three seasons. Those that did grow Cox commented it was a good season for the variety with good overall quality. However, most growers do not see any future for this variety in Hawke's Bay.
Braeburn
Braeburn had a very heavy crop load this year and it also struggled for size and colour development late in the season. Many growers in Hawke's Bay chose the Braeburn crop management option, which removed approximately 600,000 export TCEs. ENZA, in conjunction with PGNZI, came up with this scheme whereby growers could elect to juice whole crops. Under the scheme the grower received the 8ÿc/kg normally paid for orchard run juice plus a top-up of 8ÿc/kg on the export portion of the crop.
The top-up payment will come from the export Braeburn pool. ENZA believed it was better to juice fruit in New Zealand prior to incurring further cost, rather than export a large volume similar to last year and receive negative returns. The strategy was to try and match supply with demand at a reasonable grower return. The Hawke's Bay Braeburn crop of approximately 3 million TCEs was smaller than the Royal Gala crop.
ENZA's size profile payments this year made it uneconomic for growers to pick and pack counts 120 and below, and counts 70 and above. This meant there was a very restricted size required for export. There were also very restricted amounts of count 70 packed. Typical packouts averaged 72%, compared to 78% last year.
As a result of these combined actions, Hawke's Bay growers have only exported an estimated 51% of their total Braeburn crop in 2000. Many growers believe the current volume of Braeburn in the ground will be unable to be sold in the future at a profitable grower return, and are looking at some tree removal.
Fuji
Fuji crops looked extremely good leading up to harvest, but this changed when ENZA announced it was going to withdraw the 33-50% colour standard for export Fuji. This meant a lot of fruit was unable to be picked for export due to lack of colour. For most seasons in Hawke's Bay, 20-30% of the crop is unable to reach the 50% colour grade standard. Many growers felt they had not been advised of this marketing change early enough in the season to allow them to do something about it.
Most growers see a good market for Fuji and will be working on improving colour in the future using cincturing techniques, root pruning and reflective mulch.
Pacific Rose
Most growers have commented the 2000 crop was the best Pacific Rose crop ever grown in the district. Crop estimates are for 750,000 TCEs, well up on last year's 140,000 TCEs. This could be the ultimate test for the variety. It was a good year for growing Pacific Rose, with a general lack of sunburn and excellent cosmetic quality. The eating quality also appears to be good with most growers picking at a reasonably high brix. There is some concern there could be an off crop next season.
This year ENZA has marketed both Scired and Sciros strains as Pacific Rose. Many growers were against this as they believe there are quite significant differences between the two varieties.
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