YOUR INDUSTRY
Philip in his home-built coolstore
Pruning the pear trees
Season a struggle for small grower Philip Platje grows the traditional Doyenne du Comice pear variety on a couple of hectares near Cambridge in the Waikato, but what looked like being his best season yet was hit by freak weather and Covid-19. By Geoff Lewis : Photographs by Trefor Ward Philip has been in horticulture all his life and gained entry into the business while at high school in Hamilton and spent his summers helping out on an orchard owned by a family friend. Twenty-five years ago he bought a 1.85ha block at Kaipaki near Cambridge, the TreePak Orchard, and planted the old-style Doyenne du Comice — an attractive variety but with a reputed susceptibility to fireblight. Philip built a new coolstore last year, not a big place, but a useful addition to his facilities, and everything was looking pretty good until a weather bomb hit and a tornado demolished it. ‘’We stood it back up again.’’ Pruning runs from June through to September, a little spray, lime sulphur in winter and an organic fungicide. Bud burst in September, thinning and removal of any diseased fruit and harvesting late summer.
42
The ORCHARDIST : AUGUST 2020
This season had been going well with the block producing nearly 10 tonnes and the fruit quality was ‘’unreal’’ — until Covid-19 flew out of left field and closed down Philip’s outlets. ‘’It’s been a challenging year for sales, Covid shut down the farmers’ markets and the organic shops. I contacted wholesalers over the shutdown period and got no replies. Last year a lot of GAP (Good Agricultural Practice) certified fruit was dumped on the market, but the Covid thing blew everything apart. I can keep a crop up to 18 weeks if I need to. But it has been very frustrating, I’ll be lucky to sell a third of the crop, the rest will go to the cows.’’ Philip investigated making ‘perry’ or pear cider through Frucor, but the fruit had to be made into a paste and the Comice variety is not the best for this. He has a homemade pulper to process the fruit into pulp and annually makes up to 700 bottles of pear wine.
