Southern future for nashi

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 16

Southern future for nashi

The future of nashi as an export crop seems to be firmly rooted in the South Island. This year 100,000 trays were exported from Nelson, representing between 60 and 70 per cent of the total New Zealand exports. The chairman of the nashi growers’ group in Nelson, Mr Michael Simpson, says generally speaking nashi has proved far more difficult to grow successfully than was expected a few years ago.

At that time it was being hailed as the new wonder fruit which would take over from kiwifruit as the best horticultural prospect for high returns. Extensive plantings were undertaken in the North Island, but it has proved to be less than successful in the Bay of Plenty, Auckland and Northland because of problems associated with the lack of winter chilling required by the plants. This has left Nelson, Waikato and Hawke’s Bay as the main growing areas.

Mr Simpson says there is still a good future for nashi as an export crop if volumes can be increased

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and packing costs reduced, but the industry needs to consolidate its position. Some growers are now pulling out varieties which were available early but have proved unsatisfactory and are replanting with other nashi varieties. But there are almost no new nashi plantings at present.

There could even be a fall in the total area of nashi plantings as some traditional pipfruit growers pull out trial blocks. A horticultural adviser with the M.A.F. in Nelson said that nashi has suffered a loss of popularity in part because of the cyclical nature of horticultural fashion and returns. Because many people invested in nashi at the boom end of the pendulum’s swing the swing against it has been all the more pronounced. However, he says the swing against has probably gone further than it needed to.

Mr Simpson agrees. He believes the hosui variety is still commercially

WILLIAM HOBBS

viable as a new crop so long as growers do not face too much initial expense in land costs or covering for protection against birds. Where bird protection is installed it means extra costs in the order of $15,000 a hectare.

Eventually, he believes nashi will be just a two variety crop in New Zealand — hosui and kosui, which is also performing well apart from some sizing problems. He says experience has shown that New Zealand does not produce the clear-skinned varieties as well as Asian countries and varieties with russetted skin are preferred for export. One variety which was available to growers quite early, shinseiki, has proved not to be suitable for New Zealand although there were some quite heavy plantings of it. Nijiseiki is also proving to be a troublesome variety because of flesh spot decay which makes much fruit unacceptable for export. About one third of all nashi plantings in

Nelson are nijiseiki, but the variety accounts for only five per cent of exports. Mr Simpson says a good line of hosui will give an export packout of about 60 per cent, but over-all packout rates for nashi are some way below this largely because of the nijiseiki problem. Many growers are still trying to decide what to do with their nijiseiki plantings. Some are pulling them out and replanting with hosui, but at least one Nelson grower is hanging on to some of his trees purely for their pollinating abilities, though shinseiki is usually the preferred pollinator. Good pollination is recognised as one of the biggest problems facing nashi growers in the Nelson region, and particularly in Golden Bay, and they have put a directive to their national body seeking more research on the problem. Some scientific work has been done but Mr Simpson says a lot more needs to be done yet. Industry organistion is another problem nashi growers need to sort out, he believes.

One of the organisational problems which needs attention given the large volume of fruit which is unsuitable for export is a domestic quality control and marketing campaign.

He says long term domestic market prospects must be suffering from the amount of very poor quality fruit being sold.

But not all is gloom. Although there is not a lot of money to be made from nashi at present Mr Simpson says the prospects are quite good as trees, most of which are still very young, mature and crop better.

The only people making good money at present are those who were in early and were able to write off their costs when returns were of the order of $3O a tray.

Now the price is more like $lO or $ll a tray for export fruit.

Mr Simpson says as long as it stays at that and New Zealand can produce good volumes of hosui and kosui for markets in Europe and the American west coast it will remain a viable crop.