Vegetable Damage

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31654, 15 April 1968, Page 10

Vegetable Damage

Tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, cabbages, and cauliflowers are likely to have been very badly damaged during the storm, according to Mr W. Brandenburg, horticultural instructor with the Department of Agriculture. “Twenty to 30 glasshouses in the city area are total structural write-offs and there are a lot of others with glass damage,” he said. “In the hill country of Avoca, Horotane. and Heathcote a lot of fruit trees have split or been blown over. A lot can no doubt be salvaged but several hundred have been lost and at least threequarters of an acre, of caged trees have been badly damaged.”

He said soil conditions on the hills were not bad and there was fast drainage. “I am more worried about the plains vegetables. There are large numbers of cabbages and cauliflowers to be ha.-vested this winter. Most of the land at Belfast and Marshland becomes badly waterlogged with more than three inches of rain and as up to six inches has fallen 1 am afraid a very great number of the crops have been destroyed.”

Mr Brandenburg said the onion crop was over but the harvesting of carrots, potatoes and parsnips had come to a standstill. As soil temperatures were high the water could split many of the growing crops.