PRUNE PLANTINGS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23883, 10 August 1939, Page 8

PRUNE PLANTINGS

DOMINION EXPERIMENTS PRODUCTION PpSSIBILITiES ONE AREA IN CENTRAL OTAGO "V'-i (Special to Daily Times) '■ i '■' .AUCKLAND, Aug. 9.. .To determine the practicability of : supplying New Zealand's substantial prune requirements within the Dominion;- about 500 trees,of the prune d'agen variety are being established experimentally in Auckland, Hawkes Bay. Nelson and Otago. With the cooperation of the Department of Agriculture, 130 of the trees are shortly to be set out in the orchard, of Mr W A. Christensen. of Birkdale. . Until the imposition of the import restrictions the bulk of, the Dominion's dried prune requirements came from California and Australia, the demand amounting to about 1205 tons at a cost of £50,000 annually. This quantity represents 3012 tons of fresh fruit of the requisite quality, and. if the orchard experiments prove a success, no serious difficulty is expected in ultimately building uo production to meet these needs in full. . , „ . • - The d'agen variety is described.as one of the best-types,, for drying or tanning, and the New Zealand climate .is not expected to provide arty -serious cultivation difficulties; If it were.neces'sary. to -use. the sun for dehydration processing would present problems, but the introduction of the tanning method and the establishment of a process. ln« plant at Petone by a fruit-packing company will fully provide for the preparation of the fresb prunes for the The 500 trees have been equally divided among orchards at Auckland, Nelson. Otago and Hawke's Bay and the selection of the d'agen variety will enable budding to be caried out in two years' time. At this stage it will be possible to test production under local conditions, and, where the results are favourable, a nucleus from which plantations may be extended will be available. One of the largest suppliers of prunes for the world market is California, and the growth of the industry on the Pacific Coast is regarded as one of the most remarkable Industrial developments of American agriculture. The first commercial orchard of prunes was planted in California about 1870, and, as a result of steady expansion, the value of the output in 50 years was estimated by growers to have increased to 1,000,000 dollars.