Nelson Has £1,000,000 Apple And Pear Crop

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28258, 22 April 1957, Page 9

Nelson Has £1,000,000 Apple And Pear Crop

[By a Staff Reporter of “The Press”!

A £1,000,000 Nelson industry is the growing of pip fruit. It is a major primary-industry, greater than either hops or tobacco. From the Waimea county’s orchards are produced the greatest quantity of pip fruit consumed in New Zealand and shipped overseas.

So that members of Parliament, constantly bombarded with questions by their electors on fruit, its distribution, quality, and prices, could be better informed the New Zealand Apple and Pear Board, which controls the assembly, cool storage, distribution, and sales of fruit here and overseas, invited them to Nelson.

Of the members who accepted the invitation only four were South Islanders. Two were Ministers—Messrs T. P. Shand (Post-master-General) and R. G. Gerard (Minister of Marine)—and the other members were Messrs J. Mathison (Avon) and J. G. Barnes (St. Kilda). The South Island representation was poor, considering that only one member —Mr J. H. George (Otago Central) —has first-hand and practical knowledge of the fruit-growing industry of the Dominion. Although the hospitality of the Apple and Pear Board and the Nelson orchardists was abounding, the members of Parliament were reminded that the purpose of their visit was to obtain information. They were also told that questions would be welcomed and information supplied, in season and out.

Nelson’s apple and pear orchards are all within the Waimea county and in the area of Tasman Bay, that celebrated stretch of playground water. The 3500 acres—only seven times the size of Hagley Park—is mainly of 10-acre to 15-acre units, owner operated. Altogether, Waimea has 231 orchards, none of which is big. No big company operates. World Leaders In the handling of their fruit, the Waimea growers claim that they lead the world. If anyone questions that claim, they produce evidence that their methods have been adopted overseas, and they tell with pride how they “staggered” a party of Canadian growers last season with demonstrations of efficiency in handling the fruit from the tree to the hold of an overseas liner at the Nelson wharf. It is not only the handling of their apples and pears which makes the Nelson growers proud. They also claim that the quality of their fruit is not excelled by any other area in New Zealand. They have the backing of the Apple and Pear Board for that claim. The climate, the soil, and the horticultural methods give Nelson fruits their distinctive reputation. Although the weather last week let down “Sunny Nelson” to the Parliamentarians who were making their first visit, the province’s climate is famed. Sunshine is the commodity most boosted by the advertisers of Nelson—every citizen of the beautiful city, of the obviously abundantly prosperous nearby towns of Stoke and Richmond, and the farmers whose production is the most diversived of any locality in New Zealand. Clay Sub-Soil “Here you see the soil on which Nelson grows its apples and pears.” Mr John H. Brunt told a rather incredulous party as the bus hauled into the first cutting on the side road to Mapua. The cuting was of heavy clay, with the lighest of soil coverings. Yet it is this land, fed with fertilisers. on which is grown more than 1.500,000 bushels of apples and pears—more than half the Dominion’s total production. Because of the character of the soil. Nelson’s trees do not grow as high as those on the heavier and richer lands of Hawke’s Bay and other horticultural districts. The lowness of the trees is an advantage in one respect, because, at the picking time, less profits “pass through the rungs of the ladders.” Inter-row cultivation is generally not practised in the Nelson district. The apple trees are planted at an average of 150 trees to the acre and the space between them grassed. Heavy pruning and scientific ground fertilising give the production, which has increased 50 per cent, on the average since before the war. Besides adopting improved orchard practices, the growers have the help, for which they are grateful, of the Horticulture Division of the Department of Agriculture, which also has an experimental orchard near Mapua, and of the Cawthron Institute. Although he has retired from the institute, Sir Thomas Easterfield still takes an active interest in the experimental block near Nelson, soon to be replaced. Reducing Bruising

Because more than 95 per cent, of Nelson’s pip fruits has to be distributed to other parts of New Zealand or exported, the aim of the producers has been to reduce bruising to a minimum. They are setting new standards by their methods. Only a few years ago the bulk picking of fruit into trailers was introduced in a Motueka orchard. Now every Nelson orchardist, and others elsewhere, use the trailer system. The use of cases before packing is eliminated, and the various mechanical devices on the trailers for grader feeding further reduce the bruising risk. But it is the use of pallets and fork-lift trucks which has done most to ensure that the fruit reaches the consumers in the best possible condition. The pallets are carried on trucks to the packing sheds and the cases are loaded on to the pallets—square, wooden beds, with space between the two short end legs. The system is for 45 cases to be placed on each pallet. When they arrive at the cool stores or the wharf shed, the pallets are whisked away by fork-lift trucks to the ship’s side, where the slings are waiting for them.

The only handling of the cases is at the packing shed and in the ships’ holds. Nelson men have also developed grading and boxing plants. The fruit slides down felt from the trailer backed on to a platform on the grading machine, double, continuous felt-covered worm. Only fruit of a particular size can drop into the trays, from where girl packers stand and wrap and pack, so many apples to the row and so many rows to a box, between 80 and 100 cases a day. Cost to Growers From the packers, the cases travel down rollers to the lid-

nailing machine now being used by most growers. It is also a Nelson invention. The light box lids have cleats at each end. The pneumatically - operated nailingmachine drives eight nails into the lid. The lid has a slight arch and it is impossible for the fruit to move. And the pallets prevent heavy jarring when the fruit is on its way to the ship’s hold. In endeavouring to give fruit of quality, the orchardists are faced with capital expenditure. The trailers cost £-70 each; most orchardists have five of them, and some 10. The nailing machine costs about £3OO. The box itself costs 3s, and every one is lined with a thick board paper costing 6d a piece. Each apple is wrapped in a special tissue paper, oiled on one side and smooth on the other, costing £8 for every 20,000 apples. In the harvesting season, the Apple and Pear Board handles about 170,000 cases a week, or 24,500.000 apples, in the Nelson province. The pip fruit production of the district would give every man, woman, and child in New Zealand about 301 b of fruit a year.