Summerfruit New Zealand Chief Executive Marie Dawkins says El Nino weather conditions had a significant impact on fruit this season.
“The super El Nino weather played its part, resulting in an extended, excellent season, with improved volumes, great quality and delicious tasting fruit.”
She says peaches and nectarines are almost entirely consumed by the New Zealand market, while apricots are supplied to both domestic and export markets.
“Nectarines in particular are showing strong growth within NZ. Peaches also sold well with additional volume moving through the markets very quickly,” she says.
“Apricots are grumpy pollinators and responded badly to cool temperatures in the 2014-15 season, resulting in seriously reduced volumes that season. The arrival of the Super El Nino produced much better spring conditions in 2015, subsequently apricot volumes in 2015-16 were more consistent with previous years.”
Ms Dawkins says the New Zealand market has been “solid for the quality of fruit this season has produced” and has provided growers with “reasonable returns”.
“Our export markets are not as strong currently, but still experienced good growth on last year, and have real potential for further growth.”
Both apricots and cherries are the primary export varieties at this stage, although this season also saw the introduction of plums to export markets.
“While the volume is not significant (60 tonne), a third of this went to China,” she says.
“They were well received and prices were strong, and I think we will see further development of this market for plums.”
She says developments of their apricot breeding programme could also open up further market access to China and other regions of Asia.
“Our main focus has been on our apricot breeding programme, which has resulted in new cultivars with the ‘wow factor’,” she says.
“These apricots are highly coloured and have a sweeter flavour profile targeted at Asian markets. In particular we are working on market access for our apricots to China.”
Meanwhile, cherry plantings in Central Otago indicate strong demand and growth for the fruit across the board.
“New cherry plantings are continuing in Central Otago and each season sees more trees coming into production, which is a trend we don’t expect to see ending soon,” Ms Dawkins says, adding that further insights and developments will also be discussed at the upcoming Summerfruit NZ conference in Queenstown on 8-9 June.
“‘The sky’s the limit’ is the theme this year and the conference will showcase the latest technology, international trends and new developments in the summerfruit industry,” she says.
For more information:
Marie Dawkins
Summerfruit NZ
Tel: +64 4 494 9975
Email: marie@summerfruit.co.nz
www.summerfruit.co.nz