NEW SEASON’S APPLES

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23845, 14 January 1943, Page 5

NEW SEASON’S APPLES

INDICATIONS OF LARGER CROP

A very small quantity of the new season’s apples may be available in the city next week if the weather is suitable for picking, according to a report yesterday by Mr A. R. Grainger, orchard instructor of the Department of Agriculture. Christchurch. Mr Grainger said that crop estimates had not yet been completed, but a larger apple crop in Canterbury than last year's was indicated. Some crops —Cox’s Orange, Jonathan, and Delicious—were patchy. The crop of Stunners was ‘‘normal to good,” estimated at about 40,000 cases. Lord Wolseley apples promised to be a much bigger crop than last year’s. Pear prospects were not as good, last year’s' crop having been a record. Winter Coles would be down to the greatest extent, but the crop as a whole would be medium to fair.

Persons were apparently looking forward to the arrival of new season's apples on the market, he said. While growers, as soon as the weather cleared, would be picking early varieties such as Irish Peach and Ecklingville Seedling, comparatively few of these were produced in the district, and it would be mid-February before Worcester and late February before local Wolseley and Cox's Orange apples were being harvested. Similarly the picking of William Bon Chretien pears would start late in February, and practically no sugar pear types were grown in the district.