Kiwifruit hit hard!

That's how Michael Franks, chief executive of Seeka - the largest kiwifruit operator in NZ - is describing this coming season.

The new season got off to a terrible start with the devastating October frost, while an indifferent bud break is expected to significantly reduce the volume of kiwifruit available for harvest this year.

Seeka, which owns both orchards and post-harvest facilities, accounts for 25% of NZ's kiwifruit in production. It expects the amount of fruit it handles to be down by between 3.5 million and 4 million trays. The company owns orchards in Northland, Katikati, Coromandel, Tauranga, Te Puke and Edgecumbe.

Franks says while the orchards it owns weren't significantly affected by the frost, across the industry many others were badly hit and this has been compounded by the poor and - as yet - unexplained bud break.

He told Hort News the killer frost caught many growers by surprise because in some cases there wasn't an inversion layer of warm air, which made windmills and cover ineffectual.

"It's been about 15 years since we had a frost of this scale. In that time, people have made structural changes to their orchards, which meant that their wind machines were ineffectual because they had put structures up," Frank explains.

"In some cases, water systems ran out of water or the pumps failed because it was the first time they had run frost protection in a long time."

According to Franks, Seeka was fortunate because it subscribes to a prediction service and - even though it said the risk of frost was low - brought helicopters into Te Puke to hover over the orchards and prevent damage the night the frost struck. "That decision to bring in the choppers probably saved millions of dollars of fruit," he says.

The outcome of the frost and poor bud break means that there will be less fruit to harvest and pack and it will also mean that there will likely be less pressure for labour. Franks believes this may help the quality issue and the possibility of better picking standards.

However, he emphasises that both this and next year will be tough ones for growers.