James Blair Named 2026 Young Grower National Champion
James Blair, an agronomist for AS Wilcox and the Pukekohe regional champion, has won the 2026 Young Grower national title.
The Ngai Tukairangi Trust has 65ha of kiwifruit across five orchards near Hastings along with 26ha near Gisborne as well as a 55ha orchard in the Bay of Plenty and another large one at Kerikeri in Northland.
But it was one of their orchards at Puketapu near Hastings that was devastated by Gabrielle. The orchards were under water, infrastructure damaged along with a massive loss of fruit and, of course, income for the Tauranga-based trust.
Two years on, the chair of the trust Ratahi Cross says all the damage has been repaired and new vines planted, although these will not be producing fruit for several years. Despite this massive setback - especially the cost of repairs - the remaining and undamaged kiwifruit blocks have produced a bumper crop.
"This season's crop is unbelievably good. We are predicting over 1.7 million trays to be produced this year even without those damaged orchards producing, which is equivalent to the year before we had Cyclone Gabrielle. It's simply amusing," he told Hort News.
Another major success for Ngai Tukairangi, says Cross, is the fact that their kiwifruit, a mix of Gold and Organic Gold, in both Gisborne and Hastings, was the first to be picked in NZ.
Cross attributes the success in getting the orchards up and running to the excellent staff they employ. He says they took the bit between the teeth and "realised that we needed to recovery these orchards as quickly as possible".
 |
|---|
|
Ngai Tukairangi Trust chair Ratahi Cross. |
"The staff pointed out that not only do they rely on the orchards for their own livelihood, they also wanted to recognise the work our trust board did for them by helping them deal with the damage Gabrielle did to their own properties," he says.
The fruit in Ngai Tukairangi's orchards in the Bay of Plenty is now also being picked as well and Cross says the economic impact of this bumper crop will be huge for the trust and NZ. Besides kiwifruit, Ngai Tukairangi also has extensive apple orchards in the Hawke's Bay and by and large there were not badly damaged by the cyclone.
The result, says Cross, is a phenomenal crop this season.
