Kiwifruit growers have taken another step along the recovery pathway from the vine-killing disease Psa, with gold kiwifruit volumes forecast to rise in 2014 after two years of decline, Zespri’s Chief Executive Lain Jager says.
The 2014 harvest began in orchards in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Te Puke last week, with the first shipment of Zespri Kiwifruit due to leave the Port of Tauranga on the MV Lapponian Reefer for Japan on Sunday (30 March).
Mr Jager said it was forecast the industry would harvest up to 16 million trays of gold kiwifruit – which includes around 9 million trays of Zespri SunGold/Gold3 – and a total crop volume of all Zespri varieties of around 85 million trays of kiwifruit. The estimated gold volume is up from around 11 million trays harvested last season.
Mr Jager said that Zespri is well on track to having 50 million trays of SunGold by 2018, with over half of New Zealand growers now growing more than one variety on their orchards. The industry earned around NZ$1 billion in export earnings last year.
Zespri expects to load around 49 chartered refrigerated vessels over the next 32 weeks to exclusively carry the majority of the 2014 New Zealand kiwifruit harvest to key markets in Asia and Europe, including two ships direct to Shanghai.