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WET, WARM WEATHER A SHOCKER FOR STRAWBERRIES Kristine Walsh
Gisborne strawberry grower, Kristine Peck, says the weather has made the latest strawberry season their most challenging to date
Having planted strawberries in early June, Gisborne grower Kristine Peck was selling fruit by mid-October and anticipating a busy period leading up to Christmas and beyond. Then the rains came. And they came and they came until, by early December, she had announced her season was pretty much over. “The strawberries were just waterlogged and though we tried to keep the crop clean by plucking damaged fruit, we just couldn't keep in front of it,” Kristine says. “They do keep flowering so can produce right through to the end of February, but at some point you just have to decide whether it is worth going on with.” With just 10,000 strawberry plants on a portion of her 12-hectare property, Kristine is a small grower but has produced consistently good weights since her late husband, Richard, decided they would do well in the silt loam soil at their Manutuke site. The couple picked their first crop in 2006 and even since Richard died five years ago, Kristine has managed to market her crop through a range of outlets – whole; through her popular pick-your-own days and in the fresh fruit ice creams she whips up at her store, Sundays, in the centre of Gisborne.
20 NZGROWER : FEBRUARY 2022
This last season though has been her most challenging to date. “Our problems in previous years have been around getting reliable labour but this season's wet weather and humidity was something else,” she says. “It wasn't just that they were waterlogged, it was the bugs that brings with it and though we've always controlled bugs with traps, this year we just couldn't.” Kristine grows the early-fruiting Camarosa variety which is generally in full cry by Christmas, with production decreasing over the next month or two.
Everything grows like mad here but the strawberries do particularly well and people love the flavour they get “Not this season though,” Kristine says. “Keeping the plants clean means we may yet get more fruit but honestly, this year I'd be happy just to break even.” Kristine says she does love the fruit and is not giving up on it yet, though she's considering installing some under tunnel houses for protection.
