PEAR CROP WILL BE SMALLER

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29102, 14 January 1960, Page 4

PEAR CROP WILL BE SMALLER

Big Drop Expected In Hawke’s Bay

“The Press" Special Service AUCKLAND .January 13.

The pear crop this season will be down by thousands of bushels in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand’s biggest pear producing district According to estimates by the Department of Agriculture, the crop in Hawke’s Bay will drop by 60,900 bushels. Last season this area alone produced 354,250 bushels of pears. There also would be a sharp decline in the pear crop in the Auckland district, said Mr F. L. Bailey, senior instructor in horticulture of the Department of Agriculture in Auckland. The estimated crop was 27,000 bushels, compared with 74,900 bushels in 1959.

There was nothing alarming Mr Bailey said, in the expected sharp decline. This drop would be caused by seasonal variation and not by any structural damage to the trees.

Mr Bailey said the pear crop had been very good in 1958 and 1959. Statistics showed that after two “good years” a drop occurred in the third year. “It is a natural phenomenon that pear trees which have been bearing well have a slack year,” he said.

Pear trees in New Zealand, he said, were generally healthy. As a matter of fact, the trees in New Zealand were very longliving and there was no root rotting trouble.