By Summerfruit NZ Technical Manager, Sean Gresham
Summerfruit NZ directly supports a number of research projects every year, which advance knowledge how to efficiently grow premium fruit.
This year’s projects are largely focused on disease and orchard management, for improved yield and quality.
Disease management
Virginia Maroni and Phil Elmer from the Bioeconomy Science Institute (BSI) are continuing to lead work on investigating the management of cherry canker diseases (both fungal and bacterial wood). The field trials in Central Otago are into their second year, testing best practice methods for improving young tree survival through reduced disease incidence and severity. Learnings from this work, associated laboratory investigations, and overseas knowledge will inform how to best control these diseases in our orchards in the future.
Through the A-Lighter-Touch (ALT) programme, two cherry Botrytis and two Peach Brown rot fungicide trials are being conducted this year (one of each in the Hawke’s Bay and also, Central Otago). These trials are testing the efficacy of biofungicides and novel fungicides for controlling disease.
Later this summer, we will conduct fungicide resistance surveillance surveys across cherry orchards to stay informed about the sensitivity of pathogen populations to key single site fungicides.
Fruit yield and quality management
The crop physiology team at BSI, led by Claire Scofield, has trials underway on commercial cherry orchards testing the effect of naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) for improved fruit size and firmness. The experiments are repeats of work conducted in Tasmania, which showed benefits to fruit size, likely through extending xylem function.
The third year of cherry artificial pollination field trials led by Melissa Broussard from BSI are underway. Pollen collection has been ramped up this year, and applied to more than 8ha of Regina following a positive response last season for that variety.
The yield potential of several high-value varieties is likely limited by insufficient pollination. These trials aim to develop commercially viable methods for collecting and applying cherry pollen.
Nectarines, peaches, plums and apricots are also getting the love. This season we are trialling digital tools to measure fruit quality and maturity so that growers can make data-driven harvest decisions to ensure optimum fruit quality is delivered to consumers.
We are also providing support to advance the development of high-tech scanning technology, for rapid and accurate fruit counting as well as sizing for improved precision orchard management in summerfruit.
Other projects
Orchard profitability benchmarking – information on the costs and returns from a large proportion of cherry growers will be analysed to establish average orchard profitability from the last two seasons. This benchmarking data will provide valuable insights into the main divers of orchard gross margins across the Central Otago region.
The Future Orchard Planting Systems (FOPS) project came to a close last month. The final report will be available soon.
We are developing a phytosanitary pest detection training module, which will be made available to packhouses. The training will help packhouse staff to become familiar with key pests and diseases of stonefruit.
Pest control is also being tested with two aphid insecticide trials being conducted through the ALT programme.
ALT is in its final few months, so activities are focused on extension and embedding the learnings from the past six and a half years.
There are also a few additional initiatives that we intend on pursuing, so keep an eye out for these in the future. Summerfruit NZ also has some funding available to support data collection and reporting for applied orchard research projects that can benefit industry. So, if you have some burning questions that need answering, please contact us at: research@summerfruitnz.co.nz.