FROST DAMAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 29

FROST DAMAGE

OTAGO CENTRAL ORCHARDS

ALARM TALK DEPRECATED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, November 2.

Reports that recent frosts in the Ettrick fruitgrowing district have caused serious losses to growers wst= not substantiated in all quarters from which inquiries were made tonight It is true that the loss is estimated by Mr. D. Leslie, chairman of the Provincial Fruitgrowers' Council, at nearly 60 per cent, and that other growers are said to share his opinion^ but it was authoritatively stated at, Roxburgh today that the general view expressed at a meeting of growers' was that a good crop of fruit . would be obtained in this district. The opinion was also held that if any damage had been done its extent would not bo known for three weeks.

"There is nothing to be gained br adopting an alarmist attitude until th* time has elapsed when a definite assessment of damage can be gauged," stated Mr. G. H. Mclndoe, Government orchard instructor, who has just returned from a visit to Central Qtago. "The whole position is too uncertaint to quote definite losses yet and for that reason it is impossible to forecast-with any degree of accuracy the extent to which individual growers have beem affected."

Though a large proportion of fruit blossom at Ettrick and Beaumont showed definite signs of frost injury, Mr. Mclndoe said, it should be pointed, put that under normal orchard routine a large part of the fruit which ttiatiired from the blossom would in any case be taken oft* when thinning. Though it might seem rather too much to hope for, the fruit spoilt by the frost might cdncelvably prove to be the equivalent more or less of what would be taken off the tree in the normal processes of thinning. The losses to Sunnyvale orchardists might prove to be sever* and the same could be said of th* Beaumont'district, but until there wast an indication of the frosted blossom ceasing to develop or dropping it waa useless to attempt to estimate possible losses.