FRUIT INDUSTRY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16630, 9 January 1925, Page 8

FRUIT INDUSTRY.

EXPERIENCES OF GROWERS. (Special to the Herald.) AUC'KIjANI), tills day. Fruit growing in Auckland district just now is a, discouraging industry. Indeed 1924-25 season is likely to prove one of the worst and least profitable that has been experienced for many years. There are close on 1200 commercial orchardists .and strawberry and small fruit growers in the district. Of (hat total over 300 are engaged exclusively on the production of strawberries in and about greater Auckland. They alone as a rule have done well. Many of them have had an exceptionally good season, notwithstanding initial difficulties and climatic* handicaps. ‘ One grower, for example, put in 75,000 plants, and marketed 1 daily, almost throughout the season, some 25 crates, or 40011),s. lie did. not employ much outside labor, was an exceedingly busy man, and reaped a substantial reward for bis industry. There are quite a number of growers of .strawberries in Auckland who earn from £7OO to ‘£looo a year off comparatively small holdings. Local growers last year planted smaller areas than usual, the decreases aggregating one million plants.

Emit, growers and commercial horticulturists who concentrate their industry mostly tinder glass have had a good season too. As usual, although there are exceptions to the rule. Their returns generally from early grapes and Imt-house tomatoes have been satisfactory, but possibly the best results have been obtained from the raising of tomato and bedding plants, for which there is an enormous demand in .Auckland at relatively high prices, s One grower raised and sold 20,000 tomato plants this season as a side-line in a, crude glasshouse. -The profit in hothouse tomatoes, however, is,-reported by experts to be‘much loss than in former years, this having been brought about by imports from the Cook Islands. Competent growers, with a good spread of glass, and artificial beat, still can make

handsome income in and about Auckland. The experience of an English immigrant is worth citing. He came to Auckland four years ago, and acquired a, small holding, on which there were three glasshouses. His first season was anything hut good, for the simple reason that the conditions were different from those he had experienced in the south of England, but industry and intelligence,are fine assets, and Ids earnings now average £7OO a year. Of course he knows his trade.

There is no conspicuous joy .among .those commercial orchardists whoso industry is confined to the production of stone and pip fruits. An experienced observer of the industry throughout Auckland district state's that lie does not know u single case in which n. grower lias made anything like a. sub-i stantial income, while he could cite hundreds of examples of dispiriting results. The outstanding exceptions to this rule are several citrus fruit growers at Henderson. Avondale,' and Tauranga, esc peeiallv those on the East Coast. The woes of the majority of Auckland commercial orchardists take varied forms of a multitude of posts and diseases. Of these the worst, of many had varieties of blights and destructive insects this season has-been the pear midge. This insect has become* a curse. It is extraordinarily prolific, and raises from four to five broods in a. season. Its appearance last spring was made about a mouth earlier than usual, so that the maximum rate of reproduction may be anticipated. This elusive midge lias defied all the experimental sprays and poisons, and ruthlessly increases the extent of its ravages, attacking the blossom of pear trees and “digging in.” It is known that there is in the United States and Germany a parasite which destroys pear midge, but the New Zealand Department of Agriculture lias pot yet made an effort to obtain supplies of the midge destroyer, though the necessity . for doing so was urged upon iho Government two years ago. Fungoid! diseases have been exceptionally bad this season in Auckland district orchards. The worst has been that known as brown or ripe rot. It lias affected very badly several varieties of peaches, plums (excepting some. .Japanese varieties), apricots, and nectarines. Grbwners will be fortunate if 25 per cent, of their stone fruit yields prove to be free of brown rot. The present season has,, been, one of the worst ever experienced in this district for the ravages of fruit by black spot. Then, for the first time in the experience of northern orchardists. the pest known us leaf hopper has made its appearance in Auckland orchards. It is believed, however, that the extent of it§ damage will not be serious. Thera is some consolation in the fact that there has been no devastating spread of the firebright disease this sensop. Only one area, of infection has been reported. The disease .is still very bad. however, in districts, outside the area, of commercial orchards, and hundreds of trees are hopelessly blighted in certain .North Auckland localities.