Good Crops In Loburn

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30636, 30 December 1964, Page 1

Good Crops In Loburn

In spite of the lack of rain, excellent fruit crops are expected in Loburn, according to orchardists.

The dry season has caused a bigger drop of fruit than usual, but this has saved orchardists the task of thinning as extensively as in some years.

Picking of early varieties of peaches has started. The over-all crops are expected to be good. The first of the apples, Irish Peaches, will be ready in about 10 days. The indications are for an excellent apple crop, although a good rain would be welcome. Sturmer crops may be a little down, but other varieties are likely to yield more than last year. Exceptionally heavy crops of plums are reported, which is a change from last year when the European varieties failed, although good yields were obtained from the Japanese varieties. The first of the early varieties is expected to be ready very soon.

Several orchardists have been irrigating consistently

and those who have been able to do this will probably have fruit of a slightly larger size than those without irrigation. Increased size of fruit in dry seasons is only one of the advantages of irrigation, however, as a regular supply of water keeps the trees in better condition for the next year.

Under the sponsorship of the Departments of Agriculture and Industries and Commerce a small trial shipment of peaches will be sent to London by air towards the end of January. Although some North Canterbury raspberry crops were troubled by grass grubs earlier in the year, this problem was overcome by sprays and the final crops were described as being reasonable. Over-all, however, the size of the fruit may not be quite as large as in some years. Another problem has been that the dry, warm season is bringing all the berries to ripeness at the same time.

The water situation was described by one grower as being “grim” and he is looking forward to a good rain. The fruit was there, he said, and rain would fill it out well and improve the canes for next year. A Leithfield grower with

probably the largest areas of raspberries in North Canterbury could not recall when the water table had been lower at this time of the year. He is irrigating for two hours a day compared with 10 hours in other seasons. This is the first year he has pumped his well dry before February. The season had been a comparatively poor one for strawberries, said the Leithfield grower. Cold north-east winds earlier in the season adversely affected crops.