June 2017 Avoscene

Avoscene New Zealand Avocado Growers’ Journal

June 2017

Reflecting on and celebrating our biggest season ever

Inside this issue: • Innovation in promotions • Preventing avocado theft • Progress towards developing new pollination options for growers: Part 1 - Bumblebees • On orchard best practice for rots Avoscene June 2017

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“Set high standards, gather like-minded people around you and then go for it.”

MARIA WATCHORN, NEW ZEALAND AVOCADO GROWERS ASSOCIATION TOP GROWER 2016

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www.avoco.co.nz

NZ Avocado Office

Contents

PO Box 13267 Tauranga 3141 New Zealand Level 5, Harrington House 32 Harington Street Tauranga 3110

Comment

Reports

Markets

Ph: 07 571 6147 or 0800 AVOCADO (0800 286 2236) www.nzavocado.co.nz

NZ Avocado @NZ_Avocado NZ Avocado @nz_avocado

Going Global

Growing the business

6

Export contestable fund review for 2016-17 season 15

Preventing avocado theft 28

Regional Roundup

8

The New Zealand Market 18

Danni stakes claim to win avocado challenge 30

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Nursery update

12

New Zealand Promotions update

19

New Zealand Market contestable fund review 21 Innovation in promotions 23

Directors Bay of Plenty/Rest of New Zealand Ashby Whitehead NZAGA & AIC Chair Ph 07 573 6680 m. 027 283 2192 alwhitehead@xtra.co.nz

On the Orchard

Reducing the spread of industry pests 51

John Cotterell Ph 07 549 3395 m. 0274 513 138 jccotterell@actrix.gen.nz

Reminders to growers at this time of year 52

Far North Alistair Nicholson Ph 021 946 391 anicholson@vulposinvest.com

Changes to Maturity Standards 55

Avogreen

53

Industry matters

60

Recommended reading 62

Tony Ponder NZAGA Vice Chair Ph 07 552 4223 m. 0274 733 712 tony@flaxmillavocado.co.nz Linda Flegg Ph 07 549 1047 m. 021 458 782 linda@kauripak.co.nz

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Important elements to consider in Packer-Grower contracts 34

Progress towards developing new pollination options for growers: Part 1, Bumble bees 36

Industry News

64

Can small trees/high density planting be manageable in New Zealand?

39

Avocado news from the world

67

Tree Decline Weather Station 42

Optimising fruit quality through on-orchard best practice 56

New Technologies to aid our industry 44

Frost protection basics 58

Avocado yields hold their own

47

Nourish

Out and About

Avocentric: New orchardists show miraculous attention to detail 48

Recipe 68

Team Activity

68

Out and about

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John Dawson Ph 021 724 900 jd@team.org.nz At Large

Opinion piece Structural pruning

Roadmap to ExporterGrower Contracts 35

Newsroom

Dave Flett m. 027 555 4420 dave.flett@yahoo.co.nz

Mid North Roger Barber Ph 09 435 0785 m. 021 488 124 barbers@ihug.co.nz

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Outside the box

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New faces

View from the Chair

Cover Shot: Ashby Whitehead (NZAGA & AIC Chair) and PhillipWest (NZ Avocado’s Research Officer) at Dave and Julie Flett’s orchard during the recent BOP industry day.

NZ Avocado Staff

Export Directors Alistair Petrie, Independent Chair Annmarie Lee Alistair Young

Jen Scoular, CEO

Glenys Parton, Industry Systems Manager

Bevan Jelley, Market Manager

jen.scoular@nzavocado.co.nz | 021 741 014

glenys.parton@nzavocado.co.nz | 0274 99 70 81

bevan.jelley@nzavocado.co.nz | 021 994 097

Avoscene Advertising & Editorial

Edwina Aitchison, Executive Assistant

Marisa Till, Research Manager

Anna Livingston, Market Manager

For editorial contact: Natasha Mitchell, Sun Media Ltd No.1 The Strand, Tauranga Ph: 07 578 0030 Fax: 07 571 1116 email kym@thesun.co.nz

edwina.aitchison@nzavocado.co.nz | 021 977 890

marisa.till@nzavocado.co.nz | 021 344 559

anna.livingston@nzavocado.co.nz

Brad Siebert Biosecurity & Programme Manager

Phillip West, R&D Officer

Jodi Senior, Communications Manager

phillip.west@nzavocado.co.nz | 021 706 504

jodi.senior@nzavocado.co.nz

Logan Whenuaroa Research Associate

Joanne Nunn, Administration Assistant

For advertising contact: Suzy King at Sun Media Ltd Phone 021 769 831 email suzy@thesun.co.nz

brad.siebert@nzavocado.co.nz | 021 804 847

Jay Bent, Business Manager jay.bent@nzavocado.co.nz | 027 465 8886

jo.nunn@nzavocado.co.nz

logan.whenuaroa@nzavocado.co.nz 027 373 9859

Design and production: Kym Johnson, Sun Media Ltd email kym@thesun.co.nz

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For subscriptions contact: Jay Bent email jay.bent@nzavocado.co.nz

Avocado Industry Council Ltd has made every attempt to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information provided in this publication. However, the information is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. New Zealand Avocado does not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this publication or documents or other websites linked to. New Zealand Avocado assumes no responsibility for the consequences of use of such information. Your use of information contained in this publication and documents or other websites linked to is at your own risk, and you should seek further advice prior to making decisions based on the information contained herein.

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Comment

View from the Chair

By Ashby Whitehead, Chair, NZAGA & AIC

alwhitehead@xtra.co.nz

It was great to hear that growers are reasonably comfortable with the direction the industry is going, and that profitability for them remains very important, but that growers are also wanting an engaged, informed, collaborative industry.

To ensure our strategy meets the needs of growers, we asked

Jen and the team to seek feedback on the discussion at the first strategy session with the Board in November. Across grower meetings in all regions, your responses were fed back into our second strategy day at the Board meeting in March. I enjoyed meeting the growers at the Far North roadshow and had the chance to formally introduce Alistair Nicholson as their regional representative. Alistair owns two orchards in Whangarei but is the New Zealand representative of King Avocado in the Far North region.

The strategy sessions were planned to allow the five-year plan going out to 2022 to be documented. The industry has moved ahead strongly during the past five years, and having a plan in place better enables that to happen in the right way. I am a strong believer in planning and recognise that plans need to be changeable, but having that starting point is always important.

I am now working across a number of orchards and see the huge variation in on-orchard practice, and grower input on orchards.

To me, the input and interest of a grower is essential – but I say that as a grower who enjoys getting my hands dirty, and am not inclined to want others to decide for me what my trees and orchard need. Even for those growers who are not hands-on, do take the time with your consultants and contractors to get out with them, to hear their views on your orchard, and to understand what they are intending to do. There is so much in avocado growing that is still unknown, we can’t say exactly how an orchard should be managed, but the research is growing, and I encourage all growers to take that research into account on their own orchard.

The same goes on the copper debate. As I said in the March edition of Avoscene, the science has been done and the science says that eight coppers benefits fruit quality. It’s easy to object - we can’t claim to know exactly what, how and when, but copper use improves quality. Our customers don’t want poor quality fruit - that’s the simple truth. However, that is what was coming out of all regions in New Zealand last season. When I saw photos of some of the fruit arriving in the Australian market in December and January, I wondered how our exporters were going to manage that. A lot of re-packing, a very fast pull through to consumer, and in my view - a get-out-of-jail-free card. As an industry we can’t afford to take that risk again. I hope

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Comment

to see exporters take up the mantle and start planning to pay for quality, as our sector neighbours have been doing in kiwifruit for ten years.

Yes, it was wet, and yes the growing season had been difficult - so why not add protection when you can? Copper protects avocados against rots. Use it.

We are very pleased to report the excellent result for the 201617 which was released as this Avoscene went to print. The media release is included on page 62.

Sometimes when we’re in the height of success, we forget the hard work behind the scenes. Seven million trays of avocados grown, harvested, packed, marketed and exported to more than eight markets. A huge team effort, and big thanks to everyone for their part in that. Glenys has taken up the task of leading a crossindustry project on our quality issue – expect to see Avoconnects and reports on progress. Glenys does a terrific job as Industry Systems Manager, and just looking at the complexities she needs to manage is a good indication of the complexities that go on behind the scenes. Add that to the intricate detail on biosecurity that Brad leads and the research projects being managed by Marisa, and I see the impressive work undertaken on our behalf by the whole team at NZ Avocado. I suggested to Jen we help share that with growers and Jodi has instigated a plan to include a page at the back of each Avoscene where the NZ Avocado team set out their main priority areas in that quarter. Hopefully it better enables us as growers to understand the increasing complexities of our industry as we grow and extend our markets.

I’d like to think growers take real interest in what is being done on our behalf.

We reach another milestone in our industry with the election of Alistair Petrie as Independent Chair of the Avocado Exporters Council (AVEC). Andrew Darling instigated this discussion across AVEC during his tenure as Chair, and the Board strongly supports this initiative. It provides the opportunity for an independent person to help commercial players work more constructively together, while enabling good discussion on differences as well as similarities between export strategies.

Alistair has also been appointed as a non-voting member of the Avocado Industry Council Ltd Board.

A big thank you to Andrew for his role as Board member and Chair of AVEC. It’s also very pleasing to welcome back Alistair Young, who was nominated by AVEC to replace Andrew on the Board.

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Comment

Growing the business

By Jen Scoular, CEO, New Zealand Avocado

jen.scoular@nzavocado.co.nz

We are very proud to be part of this exciting industry that promotes an amazing health product – and enables its growers to be profitable.

We have now finished our biggest year ever – both in

terms of value and volume. We have never before seen value remain high while volume is high. We’re in new territory – with great yields from orchards and terrific returns in all export markets. The New Zealand market too retained excellent value, with weekly volumes higher than we have ever seen before.

Without a doubt there is a tail wind. We are benefitting from the celebrity status of avocados globally, the undeterred growth in demand. We love that food writers, bloggers and consumers have an insatiable appetite for new and exciting ways to use delicious, nutritious avocado.

As a team at NZ Avocado we have one key driver – to deliver value to growers. In order to do so we need to know how we deliver the most value to our ‘customers’; that’s you – our growers. We need to better understand from you what you want us to focus on, so you continue to support us through the levy system we operate under. Following a Board strategy session in November, we have gone out and checked with growers that where NZ Avocado and the Board feel we should be going is the same direction our growers want us to take. We hosted roadshows in Northland and Katikati, a new grower evening in Tauranga, and a grower discussion group in Whangarei. Feedback suggested 6

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we are on the right track – that money talks, and the positive returns to growers over the past few seasons is definitely adding value.

Feedback has been very positive and there is strong support for a continuation of the current strategy – to improve productivity, to develop new markets and to grow as an engaged, collaborative and profitable industry.

A forecast lower volume in the year ahead of us confirms sadly that we still have a long way to go to resolve our biggest challenge of irregular bearing – but our benchmarking case studies do show we are making headway.

To measure the effectiveness of our research programmes, we record volume against every avocado orchard in New Zealand and benchmark performance of each orchard, based on the average four year yield in tonnes per hectare and the consistency of yield. Consistency of yield is measured by an international formula comparing the yield this year with the yield last year – it’s called the Irregular Bearing Index.

If growers want to see how their orchard compares with the industry, they can ask for their benchmarking report.

What we look at is the movement in orchard performance.

We have three segments - what we refer to as the best performers, good performers, and standard performers.

We also recognise quality is of significant importance to maintain and grow consumer demand. Quality last season wasn’t good enough, and I hope growers have been taking to heart the messages we have been sharing about the need to manage quality on orchard better. We talked about the need for coppers in the March edition of Avoscene and I’ll talk about that again. There has been industry debate about coppers, but we don’t currently have an alternative, so as Ashby says – put the protective raincoat on your fruit. Use copper to protect your fruit, on the basis if you don’t do everything you can on-orchard to enhance quality, nothing that happens after that can help produce a premium avocado.

Glenys and Marisa both cover quality in their reports. Please read them and provide feedback if your opinions differ. Talk to your neighbour about what they are doing to improve quality.

I have already heard from some growers who want to know

Comment

The aim through the research, that Marisa and her team lead, is to move orchard performance from standard through good to best. It is working and we are happy with the increase in on-orchard best practice being implemented, especially around pruning, the use of mulch and the improvement in both the use of irrigation and the way irrigation is used.

exactly what copper will do, but you all know with avocados that so many different factors are influencing your tree and your fruit - we can’t isolate the exact impact of one thing done over an 18 month period. The science conducted by Kerry Everett at Plant & Food Research concluded that eight copper applications every season improved fruit quality – read about this in the next edition of Avoscene. Why on earth wouldn’t you seek to improve quality if that is vitally important to your end customer?

Bevan has an excellent report on the risk and mitigation of stolen avocados. With a lower volume season, and avocados in hot demand, the risk of thieves stealing your or your neighbour’s avocados is heightened. The police are being very supportive of the industry; please follow the mitigation recommendations in Bevan’s report.

There is very good reading later in this edition on the Bee+ to Bee– project, the small tree project and the weather stations being used in the tree decline working groups.

We hope you’ve saved the date for the AGM and Grower Forum in Whangarei on 31 August. We will also hold a Grower Forum in Tauranga in September – the date is yet to be confirmed and will be advertised in Avoconnect.

Engaging with you as a grower is very important to us. I hope to engage with lots of you over the coming months.

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Comment

Regional Roundup Roger Barber & John Dawson – Mid-North region Roger Barber: tudorwoodnz@gmail.com

John Dawson: jd@team.org.nz

10.04.17

The summer drought ended abruptly in early Roger Barber

John Dawson

March with deluges of heavy rain. This heavy rainfall was soaked up by the dry soil like a sponge, though it triggered a significant late fruit drop on many orchards. At the time of writing, we are experiencing another period of heavy rain one month later: a legacy of Cyclone Debbie which brought cyclonic winds and extreme flooding to the east coast of Queensland and Northern New South Wales.

The aftermath of this weather system dumped heavy rain over the northern North Island, with one month’s normal rainfall received over a 48 hour period. In much of the greater Whangarei district, more than 180mm of rain was recorded during a 30 hour period with more forecast to come. The question is - how much more rain can the already wet ground soak up?

The sodden soils are not likely to aid the recovery of mature avocado trees in the mid North, still suffering from the after-effects of three wet seasons following intense storms in 2007. Most trees have been showing a slow recovery after roots and canopies re-establish.The still deficient root systems struggle to uptake sufficient nutrients to aid full tree recovery.

An interesting development is the increasing use of foliar applied nutritional products which circumvent the root system, applying essential nutrients e.g. nitrogen, potassium, calcium and boron to be absorbed directly by the leaves. While the use of such products has been previously restricted by their high price, greater use by other industries such as kiwifruit and apples has seen a reduction in their relative cost. They can now be used economically to supplement traditionally applied solid fertilisers. They provide a real option to overcome restricted root activity and help aid tree root recovery.

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Three highlights since our last report to you were the well-attended NZ Avocado organised mid North discussion group, spray workshop and pruning field day. The energetic and interactive discussion group covered a number of topics, including an update on the NZ Avocado research programme and the core considerations of the 2017-18 strategic plan.

The spray workshop gave Glenys Parton a well-deserved opportunity to share her frustrations on the poor level of compliance being currently demonstrated in our AvoGreen reporting and documentation.

Everyone who attended should by now be crystal clear on these requirements. If you didn’t attend and are not confident about any aspect of your AvoGreen compliance, please speak directly to Glenys. Fresh thinking on spraying science from Dr David Manktelow, supported by the team from Spraytech, provided a valuable combination of theory and practice demonstrated on Sue Culham’s picture book trees.

The most recent pruning field day was held at the orchard of John Wiessing and Annemeike Windlebourne, who as always were gracious in their hospitality and knowledge sharing.

John proceeded to transform into his 25 year old self to provide a high energy and highly effective demonstration of his pruning strategy and technique. The day was rounded out by quality updates from Marisa Till and Phillip West covering 2016-17 season, 2017-18 projections, the Board‘s budget process, as well as an update on pruning best practise.

John Wilkinson from Horticentre covered the importance of and correct process for root testing and this was followed by an evenly weighted discussion around the foliar versus injecting debate.

Comment

Linda Flegg, BOP rep linda@kauripak.co.nz 31.03.17

Overview of 2016-17 season Far North

Reports have come in of a steady crop with a slightly larger size profile than last season.

Blemish and ridging contributed to higher than normal reject rates this season. Preclearance failures for mites saw the On shore Preclearance Inspection (OPI) programme finish early with fruit then being shipped non-precleared.

Whangarei

The 2016-17 season had a slow start due to highly variable maturities and was hampered by rain early on, but improved for a good clear run from early November. The size profile was larger than normal for the Whangarei district but generally cosmetic quality of fruit was similar to last season. There was a good flow and steady volume of fruit harvested through the Christmas & New Year period, running on into January.

As it did in the Far North, the preclearance programme was finished early due to pest finds.

Looking forward to next season, it seems the biennial fruiting issue in this district has prevailed again, with crops predicted as being down by up to 60%. This has been attributed largely to the cold wet spring.

South Auckland

Export pack-outs were considerably down on last season with high instances of wind rub/ blemish. Volumes have been steady from year to year with this season being no exception. The weather didn’t impede harvest as it did in the Bay of Plenty. Looking to next season, the area will produce a similar crop volume but with variability from grower to grower.

Bay of Plenty

This season began early with harvesting in some orchards that had reached maturity in early

August. The high rainfall in September and October caused problems with harvesting, and forced many packers into playing catch-up right from the outset. Despite overall fruit quality being down on last year, I was surprised that overall our average export pack-outs were only down about 3%. Again, wind rub and blemish were the prevalent factors, undoubtedly a result of the howling winds that seemed to plague us all season.

Linda Flegg

Fruit Growers Associations

On a completely different note, the Katikati and Te Puke Fruit Growers Associations have been giving guidance to government, Hort NZ and regional councils, for more than 45 years.

Our associations have a small but tireless group of executive members who toil away in the background dealing with issues that face the horticultural industry in general. They work to provide governance in many areas, primarily to ensure the views of growers are heard, and represented. With the development of strong industry groups such as NZKGI and NZ Avocado, which have strong profiles, our Fruitgrowers Associations struggle to attract new members.

I am sure many of the new orchardists may not even be aware these associations exist.

With many new entrant orchardists in our avocado industry, if you are a new Bay of Plenty avocado grower I would like to encourage and invite you to support our local association. The meetings and discussions are varied and always interesting and informative. Feel free to contact me for details.

Continuing with the governance theme, it will soon be time to put nominations forward for the upcoming Avocado Growers Association elections.

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OBAL FRESH

Greg O’Carroll, Client Relationship Manager M:027 268 0374 E: greg@justavocados.co.nz John Emett, Orchard Management & Grower Services M:027 476 9087 E: john@justavocados.co.nz Erica Faber, Orchard Productivity Manager M:027 549 8229 E: erica@justavocados.co.nz

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Your specialist avocado service provider

Kate Trufitt, Avocado Business Manager, Apata Group Limited

Comment

Outside the box kate.trufitt@apata.co.nz

"That was a huge season" - a statement summing up how the team at Apata, and most Post-Harvest Operators, felt upon reflection of the season just passed. And it was - in terms of both volume and duration.

As with all seasons, large or small, there were some unique dynamics to contend with. For example, we all had our fair share of wind and rain prior to Christmas, especially during flowering, and this did impact the ability to harvest some orchards when required.

Another example of a unique seasonal challenge was that, right in the middle of the season, the industry had to deal with a rot issue that plagued exports in December and January particularly. This issue required all operators to review their supply chain in search for opportunities to minimise the impact.

Questions asked were; • was there any external fruit damage through the packing line?

• was there chill damage?

• was product being shipped at the correct conditions? and many more…

Tests of water from waterblasters were taken, and the efficacy of sanitising agents across a pack day were assessed - were they used at the right concentration and effective in maintaining water quality across the packing day? Were some more effective than other?

A targeted library tray sampling protocol was put in place by some Bay of Plenty packhouses to specifically assess product, and assessments were carried out on fruit after being ripened in similar conditions to Australian markets.

The best efforts of many resulted in the commercial impact to growers being minimised, but the long-term interests of the industry are best served by understanding the importance of preventing rots at the place of formation - the orchard. To this end, the industry has reformed a working group to keep the issue of managing in-market rots to the fore each season. To date there has been a focus on packhouse processes and monitoring fruit through to market.

The loss of the regular use of the post-harvest fungicide prochloraz (Sportak) is of concern. This product increasingly creates issues with chemical residue on fruit (Asian markets, in particular, are quite sensitive to such things), and is also found to be residual on plant used for packing other products such as kiwifruit. Attention has also turned to orchard practices that will prevent the rot in the first place and maintaining pick to pack times and adhering to harvesting best practice such as guidelines for picking following rain to help mitigate the effects of rots should be our focus in the first instance. Field days are now being scheduled to discuss exactly this.

As an overall observation, the next crop looks to be half of the season just gone, with some orchards set to experience substantial volume reduction. We also know that next season, as always, will present us with new and interesting dynamics to keep us all on our toes.

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Going Global Alistair Petrie, AVEC Chair al.petrie66@gmail.com

Markets

As the new Chair of the Avocado Exporter Council, Alistair Petrie shares his views on the thriving avocado industry and the success of the 2016-17 season.

It is with pleasure I write for the first time as Independent Chairman of AVEC.

It is clear that the industry has evolved and matured to a level which makes it increasingly difficult for the chairman to be actively involved in the running of their own business, and at the same time wear a neutral hat ensuring the right decisions and directions are being pursued for the better of the industry as whole.

John Carroll, Alistair Young and Andrew Darling have all contributed well as chairman over many years in often difficult and compromising times and should be thanked for their efforts.

One of the many reasons I accepted the position is because I have always admired the avocado sector as one which embraces competition, but has the structure, organisational support and a culture to act and make decisions which are in the best interests for all stakeholders in the industry. It is a good example of coopetition. Coopetition can be loosely defined as when companies interact with partial congruence of interests. They cooperate with each other to reach a higher value creation if compared to the value created without interaction and struggle to achieve competitive advantage. Often coopetition takes place when companies that are in the same market work together in the exploration of knowledge and research, at the same time that they compete for market-share of their product and in the exploitation of the knowledge created. My observation is the New Zealand avocado industry has this balance.

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One of the challenges for industry bodies in the medium and longer term is to make sure we remain relevant and add value to those who fund the support structures that are currently in place. The future growth and aspirations of the large holdings and integrated corporate growers will require some different thinking as their business drivers maybe be different to the current grower/packer/ marketer relationship.

The 2016-17 season is in wrap-up mode and it sounds like it has been a successful one. Record export volumes of 4.7 million at strong prices and an increased development of new markets. Crop estimates for the coming season look to be well down (2.7 million) which will create a challenge for the exporters to maintain valuable shelf space which has been created in this past year. Hopefully our culture of coopetition will help us navigate our way through.

We are faced with other challenges like a possible phasing out of the preferred OPI programme for Australia, and the neverending desires for competing countries trying to gain access to the same markets we supply. It is pleasing to see NZ Avocado and AVEC being very active in Wellington and in the overseas markets to ensure the New Zealand avocado industry is not disadvantaged.

I have the luxury of having a few months before the new season begins to help me get up to speed with the many finer details of the industry and take the opportunity to meet as many stakeholders as possible.

Export contestable fund review for 2016-17 season Bevan Jelley, Market Manager, NZ Avocado

bevan.jelley@nzavocado.co.nz

In the 2016-17 season, the contestable promotions fund supported exporters to deliver projects in Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and India. Read below a summary by exporters of each project undertaken in 2016-17.

Markets

NZ Avocado uses the contestable promotions fund to

support exporters in developing priority markets. $160k of the commodity levy collected for promotions was allocated to enable exporters to undertake $431k worth of promotion activity in 2016-17. Projects are approved by the contestable fund panel which includes the NZ Avocado Board Chair, NZ Avocado CEO and an independent marketing consultant.

Japan's instagram influencer activity.

increased. Avanza avocados now demand a significant price premium over our number one competitor – Mexico.

Japan's in-store competition.

Japan – Ted Thomas, Avanza

Volume up 47% for 2016-17 Avocado season in Japan says Avanza Market Manager for Japan Ted Thomas.

Recognised as a priority market for New Zealand avocados, consumption continues to grow in Japan at a healthy rate.

Promotional initiatives funded jointly by Avanza and NZ Avocado have focussed on delivering key messages around the premium quality of New Zealand avocados, seasonality, health and versatility.

In recent years, a movement towards cleaner, healthier food options has catapulted avocados into the global spotlight. Praising them for their health and beauty benefits, the sophisticated Japanese consumer rates New Zealand avocados highly and is prepared to pay a premium price for what they know to be a safe and healthy product.

This season’s large crop has allowed Avanza to market a larger volume of fruit to Japan compared with the 2015 season. Volume is up 47% and CIF Yen values have also

Avanza shipped approximately 189,000 trays to Japan, up from 128,000 trays sent in the 2015-16 season, approximately 65% of the total New Zealand fruit exported to Japan carried the Avanza™ label. Some of the highest export grade avocados coming out of New Zealand arrive in Japan and for this reason, it’s important to continue promoting our fruit.

Japan remains the largest volume market in Asia for Avanza.

This position is however being hotly contested by Korea, which is at an exciting stage of its development. The promotional activities undertaken this season support New Zealand’s reputation for delivering a high quality premium avocado to our Japanese customers. Strategic investment in this market continues to be a priority for Avanza. These activities provide an excellent platform to deliver the NZ Avocado category story.

Aside from these various consumer promotions, Avanza continues its work at trade level with its Tokyo-based importer – Farmind Corporation. Farmind continues to build a strong and varied customer base for Avanza avocados.

Farmind operates from a network of 14 distribution centres spread across Japan. These centres are interconnected in a cold chain that enables distribution within a product specific temperature range.

This company stands apart as offering high value-added

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Markets

services and functions to customers like Avanza. An important focus for Farmind is supplying fruit ripe and “ready to eat” on the day of purchase, an important factor in driving avocado consumption.

representatives) and NZ Avocado, has been the main promoter of ripe avocado sales in Korea. From 400 instore demonstrations, 200,000 consumers tasted soy milk avocado smoothies. These demonstrations were again run in conjunction with Maeil Dairies, which is the second largest dairy and drinks company in Korea and actively promote healthy lifestyles.

Maeil teamed up with Jihoo Mom, a popular website for expectant mothers and mothers with young children, to offer the 457,000 website members a chance to win one of 50 New Zealand avocado and Maeil soy milk hampers. Maeil also sent product to ‘power bloggers’ who uploaded soy milk and avocado recipes on their blog pages – these were viewed by over 40,000 visitors daily.

Avanza will continue its successful promotional programme during the 2017-18 season.

In-store ripeness guide material in a Korean supermarket.

Korea - Martin Napper, Avanza

In 2016-17 Korean avocado consumption grew 92% to 529,000 trays, of which Avanza supplied 25%. While currently only representing an annual per head consumption of 58g, increasing numbers of the 50 million population are becoming aware of the health benefits of avocados. Media and celebrity endorsements are rising and more dishes incorporating avocados are appearing.

Korea is one of the few Asian countries that prefers large sized fruit (16-24ct) and will return good value for it.

E-Mart, the largest supermarket chain, and Homeplus, prefer 16ct to 18ct fruit and CostCo sell only 20ct fruit.

Avanza, in conjunction with Latitude (in-market

Thailand – Lesly Shield, JP Exports

JP Exports used the NZ Avocado contestable funding to promote avocados with two customers in Thailand.

We have had positive feedback from all customers, all saying that their sales increased on 2015 – one customer hoped for a 100% increase, but actually successfully increased 175% on last season.

In-store promotions in Thailand, the ripeness bag.

We arranged for ripening bags to be issued to customers as part of one promotion. We used the NZ Avocado generic promotional material on how to ripen and store avocados and printed this information in Thai on the bags - they were a great success. These bags helped our in-store promotion staff explain to the consumer how to handle avocados.

Malaysia - Lesley Shields, JP Exports

In-store sampling in a supermarket in Korea.

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Our Malaysian customer promoted New Zealand avocados for the first time ever, although they have been importing and selling New Zealand avocados for years. They saw sales

Overall our customers and JP Exports were very pleased with the promotions. It appears the best way to promote New Zealand avocados is taste testing and ensuring the instore promotion staff can explain to the consumer how to store and eat avocados.

Thailand - Carwyn Williams, Avanza

We hit the ground running in Thailand with this being Avanza’s fourth season in this relatively new market. Avanza managed well over 200 demonstrations with our six retail customers.

Feedback suggests that Thai consumers love In-store avocado smoothie sampling in Thailand. the creamy texture of our avocados, especially in a smoothie. They are starting to understand the ripe stages of an avocado and how that relates to its usage. There is a lot of frustration that they can’t always buy a ready to eat avocado. This is going to be a challenge for quite some time as we build confidence of our handlers and retailers around managing ripe fruit.

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Singapore – Carwyn Williams, Avanza

Avanza entered its fifth season in Singapore with a clear vision for growth in the market. Singapore has been a test bed for retail innovation. Each season we gain more momentum on the previous as smaller retailers adopt Avanza avocados as their preferred avocado supplier.

The implementation of our 12-month supply strategy is now entering its fourth season. Retailers confirm that this strategy alone has created a platform for significant growth.

The consistency of supply 12 months of the year has created consumer awareness of and confidence in the Avanza brand.

Each season we continue to challenge ourselves with progressing the development of our ready to eat programme along with increasing the size profile offer in Singapore.

Our persistence paid off this season as we engaged two new smaller retail groups who signed up to the Avanza strategy of implementing ready to eat programmes with all retailers. We also had our largest retail partner extend their store reach to 100% ready to eat.

Unfortunately, we experienced some quality issues with container arrivals in early December which required us to switch to airfreight and end our New Zealand 2017 season prematurely. This meant an early transition to our Californian supply to maintain our 12 month strategy with Singaporean retailers.

A further contestable fund project was undertaken by Avanza in India. This will be reported in the next issue of Avoscene.

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NZ Avocado introduced its social media platforms in Thailand mid-season and we took the opportunity to actively promote this tool with our retailers. We integrated the “like us” on Facebook and Instagram message into our point of sale material and related in-store activities. We see this as an exciting tool for reaching out directly to the end consumer through collaboration with our retail customers own social media platforms. Two of our retail customers claim to have over 10 million unique users of their own!

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increase 15% during the promotional period and want to run a promotion again next season.

The promotion also helped them sell the range of smaller fruit (28-36 counts) when normally our In-store sampling in a Malaysian supermarket. customer in this market would only take 36 count avocados.

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To book advertising space in the next issue of Avoscene please contact Suzy King at SunMedia Ltd. Booking deadline for the next issue is June 12th, 2017.

Contact Suzy on 021 769 831 email suzy@thesun.co.nz

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The New Zealand Market Mike Swan, Southern Produce mike@southernproduce.co.nz

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A huge collective effort across market management and promotions resulted in remarkable levels of demand for the largest crop of avocados ever sold in the New Zealand domestic market. The winter months and coming season now pose a different kind of challenge.

The challenge for the 2017-18 season will be balancing

consumer expectations with available avocado supply and the New Zealand Market group is working on strategies to address this. A plan is in place for proactive engagement of media and utilising NZ Avocado social media to create articles and videos explaining why avocado supply varies throughout the year and from season to season.

As people who live and breathe avocados every day, it is easy to forget that like other grocery items, consumers now expect avocados to be on supermarket shelves in consistent quantities with consistent pricing all year round.

The messaging that is being developed for 2017 will focus on educating avocado-loving New Zealanders about avocado seasonality, the New Zealand origin of all avocados sold here, and the fact that avocados are grown on a tree, not produced in a factory!

The New Zealand Market Group continues to evolve and its members are taking gradual steps to make the group more formal, to ensure the voice for the New Zealand market has influence in wider industry strategy. Key changes in industry quality and strategy have been enacted by the group in the past six months.

A submission was made by the New Zealand Market Group requesting recognition within the Avocado Export Marketing Strategy. This was accepted by the EMS working group in March 2017 and a clause was added stating that all exporters should provide regular representation for their domestic market supply to the New Zealand Market Group meetings. This update is awaiting approval from the

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Horticulture Export Authority for the 2017-18 EMS. The changes to New Zealand market maturity outlined on page 55 were discussed, debated and eventually agreed upon by the New Zealand Market Group. The group collectively believes the updated New Zealand market maturity guidelines provide the best balance of being able to continue to deliver market value growth in New Zealand, and at the same time provide an improved eating experience for consumers in the early part of the season.

Most if not all returns for the 2016-2017 avocado season have now been published. The values achieved for growers this season have been nothing short of remarkable, particularly given the New Zealand crop of almost 1.9 million trays. While there has been some discussion around higher reject rates this year, the reality was that there was a need to lift the quality of the offer delivered on New Zealand supermarket shelves this year, to ensure consumer loyalty, drive sales and maintain confidence in avocados.

This season industry returns for export and Class 2 have been supplemented with good returns on processing grade fruit. Avocado processing companies are working to establish themselves in an industry which still faces challenges of alternate production. There were some weeks when the fresh volume equalled the process/oil/other volume, which caused some consternation amongst some growers. However, when you consider the overall value outcomes of this 7 million tray season, it is obvious that the industry collectively made the right decisions.

New Zealand market promotions update

New Zealand Promotions update Jodi Senior, Communications Manager, NZ Avocado jodi.senior@nzavocado.co.nz Anna Livingston, Market Manager, NZ Avocado anna.livingston@nzavocado.co.nz

The promotional activity for the New Zealand market has wound down for the season with the exception of social media. Read more about the different ways we plan to utilise this rapidly growing communication platform.

Healthy Food Guide TV series

You may have read in the last edition of Avoscene about Best Ugly Bagels café taking out the title of NZ Avocado’s inaugural award, “New Zealand’s Best Avocado Café”. A video clip has been created to share their story and to show New Zealand exactly why they were voted New Zealand’s best avocado café for 2017.You can view this on our YouTube channel or Facebook page.

This season NZ Avocado sponsored six avocado recipes on the new Healthy Food Guide Television series which is due to air in May and then will be available on demand for six months following.

New Zealand avocado orchard imagery

NZ Avocado has been developing the New Zealand avocado category story and as part of this, had images taken of various Bay of Plenty avocado orchards. As a way of engaging consumers and promoting the message that all fresh avocados sold in New Zealand are grown in New Zealand, NZ Avocado asked its Facebook followers to vote on their favourite avocado orchard image. This activation received a fantastic response, with a lot of followers commenting that they hadn’t realised all fresh avocados they consumed were grown in New Zealand.

Easter competition

For Easter, NZ Avocado shared images of Ollie Avocado with five well-known New Zealand landmarks – Ohakune’s carrot, Kaikoura’s crayfish, Rakaia’s salmon, Te Puke’s kiwifruit and Morrinsville’s colourful cows. NZ Avocado then asked followers to guess where Ollie was to be in to win an avocado Easter prize pack. Followers had a lot of fun with this activation – it was a great way to engage with followers to get the message across that all fresh avocados sold in New Zealand are grown in New Zealand, and to also show the many other popular New Zealand foods that avocados pair well with.

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New Zealand’s Best Avocado Café 2017

The series features nutritionist Claire Turnbull and Chef Sam Campbell, and focuses on the food we eat and how we eat it. Healthy Food Guide also takes a holistic approach to our overall wellbeing and addresses topics related to stress, sleep, exercise and lifestyle.

The featured avocado recipes focus on the varied ways avocados can be eaten, combined with nutritional information. The content is also available for NZ Avocado to use on our website and social media.

For the coming season, NZ Avocado will be looking to expand on the nutrient properties and health benefits of avocado in the New Zealand promotions programme. New research shows that avocados grown in New Zealand have unique nutrient properties and TV series such as Healthy Food Guide will be used to add depth to this side of the New Zealand avocado story.

Animated Video

During the winter months the rising price of avocados usually appears in New Zealand media. NZ Avocado is creating an animated video to explain seasonal avocado supply in New Zealand, the unique attributes of the avocado tree and educate more New Zealanders about where avocados in New Zealand are grown. This aim is to manage consumer expectations by educating on the seasonality of fresh produce. The video will be published in late April on our website and social media pages.

Ollie around New Zealand - the images that were shared on the NZ Avocado Facebook page as part of the Easter competition.

Claire Tumbull and Sam Campbell at Healthy Food Guide live filming Avoscene June 2017

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New Zealand Market contestable fund review Bevan Jelley, Market Manager, NZ Avocado bevan.jelley@nzavocado.co.nz

NZ Avocado uses the New Zealand market contestable promotions fund to support marketers to undertake innovative promotion activity and deliver the New Zealand Avocados Amazing Anytime message.

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Projects undertaken by avocado marketers in New Zealand

in 2016-17 included digital and online promotion of avocados, supermarket avocado display competitions and an innovative avocado label that went viral in global news media.

Avocado digital promotions Rachel Brodie, BayFarms

BayFarms Online avocado sales

Trevelyan’s growers’ domestic avocados are marketed by BayFarms. We have developed a website that will enable all New Zealand consumers to purchase avocados online. This is contributing to increased awareness in New Zealand and strengthens the New Zealand Avocados Amazing Anytime message.

One of our aims is to increase the overall wealth of New Zealand growers, by improving returns to Trevelyan’s growers and ensuring good quality produce is delivered into New Zealand homes. The consumers’ preference for convenience and purchasing a trusted and quality brand online is increasing, so offering an alternative point of sale for consumers will provide long term value for the industry.

We established our website, including ripening information and a shopping cart, along with our Facebook page and Instagram accounts. The NZ Avocado contestable fund was used to support the delivery of our digital strategy, including consumer campaigns and advertisements through the consumer campaigns and other online channels. We have continued to develop our monitoring procedures and responses to customer engagement and feedback in line with our strategy and customer service focus.

As an example of a campaign, during the summer holiday break we ran a ‘#Fakeation’ competition. We encouraged our followers to take a photo of themselves on holiday or ‘fake it’ by posting a photo to our Facebook page. The winner received a box of avocados.

Fresh Direct's supermarket tastings and avocado display competitions in New World stores.

Whilst not without its challenges, we have made a successful start, and are looking forward the future of selling avocados online at http://bayfarms.net.nz

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Making superfruit stand out - Fresh Direct, Neil Beri

Markets

The 2016-17 NZ Avocado contestable fund has enabled outstanding avocado promotion success for both Foodstuffs South Island (FSSI) and Fresh Direct, and we have seen some outstanding growth for the avocado category for all parties involved.

The objectives for the Fresh Direct project were to increase avocado consumption across the South Island by increasing sales at New World and Four Square stores.

Fresh Direct wanted to utilise the NZ Avocado Amazing Anytime promotions story and enable New World and Four Square to communicate the benefits of avocados to their customers across all of their South Island stores. “In season now” messaging and provision of ripe and ready to eat avocados were also executed in stores.

The key activities that were undertaken in order to deliver this success were avocado retail display competitions, mailer advertising and in store sampling. Recipe cards, recipe booklets and nutrient information were used at point of sale on avocado store displays.

Both banner groups showed excellent avocado sales growth over the course of the project. New World store sales were up 32% in promotion weeks and Four Square avocado sales up 85% compared to the weeks prior.

Promotions New Norld, Tim Mclean Promotions Four Square, Janick Lanciaux Procurement. And of course, we would also like to thank the NZ Avocado team for their commitment and ongoing help. Bring on the 2017-18 season.

2017 for Fresh Direct has been an extremely busy year, particularly when it comes to avocados. One of our biggest successes has been FSSI awarding Fresh Direct a further 15% of the Avocado Category, giving us a total of 30% moving forward; an 100% increase.

The Ripe and Ready Campaign – Alana Shortt, Freshmax

Freshmax worked with an award-winning FMCG design agency, Marx, to develop an avocado label to help consumers better understand the stages of avocado ripeness.

Freshmax quickly established the idea of a three stage visual representation of a Hass Avocado’s skin colour at different phases of ripeness. Then we pursued the wording that would accompany this, sticking with terminology that was simple, yet technical. The label was applied to all loose Freshmax avocados sold in Countdown stores in New Zealand.

The concept went viral online when a user posted a picture of the sticker to social media platform Reddit in January 2017. We were astounded to see that, in just 48 hours, the post had more than 40,000 likes and 900 comments. 88% of these participators “voted up” and included comments (i.e. recommended the idea and post), suggesting that more than 35,000 people thought that the idea was great and one they wanted to share.

The picture was then picked up by news sites around the world, creating great visibility for avocados from New Zealand.

2017 has also seen some big changes at FSSI with a focus on a premium, pre-ripened avocado programme driven

by Produce Retail Operations Manager Rusty Rae. The new strategy has been a total success, with pre-ripe sales numbers increasing dramatically and they continue to grow. Fresh Direct has also implemented its own 16ct extra-large pre-ripe avocado which is taped and barcoded for store traceability. The pre-ripe XL option is proving itself as adding real value to the FSSI programme. Over the 2016-17 season, our avocado supply partnership and the resulting sales through FSSI have gone from strength to strength, and the contestable fund project supported a big part of that growth. Working collaboratively with NZ Avocado and our retail partners helped contribute significantly to the project’s success. Key contributors at FSSI were Janine Small Freshmax’s avocado ripeness sticker.

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Freshmax has worked closely with NZ Avocado throughout the 2016-17 season to incorporate the New Zealand Avocados Amazing Anytime story into an avocado baby retail pack.

Freshmax and Countdown are planning to release the avocado baby pack at the start of the 2017-18 season, with in-store sampling and point of sale material to support the release. Keep an eye out in the catalogues and stores for this new avocado innovation.

Innovation in promotions Bevan Jelley, Market Manager, NZ Avocado bevan.jelley@nzavocado.co.nz

This season the avocado industry has collectively harvested, packed and sold the largest volume of avocados ever grown in New Zealand. Big seasons place pressure on market demand and the effectiveness of promotion activity needs to increase to ensure consumption is able to keep pace with fruit supply.

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Selfies with Ollie during nationwide in-store supermarket samplings.

That supply pressure is acutely felt in our domestic market

to New Zealanders are modest, to put it lightly. Our New Zealand Avocados Amazing Anytime promotions activity includes television and online advertising, supermarket avocado sampling, consumer events and social media.

Alongside this we produce avocado education and training resources for retailers, including an Avocado Retail Toolkit and Avocado Retailer Training Video.

New Zealand is a priority market for development as part of the avocado industry’s Primary Growth Partnership programme. In the past four seasons the activity undertaken as part of the PGP programme has helped support New Zealand avocado marketers to double the value of the market to more than $40 million NZD last season, making up a significant chunk of the $134 million total industry FOB value.

Each season we look for marketing innovations to make our promotions budget stretch further and drive deeper engagement with consumers. A digital marketing focus has certainly helped enable that this season and we’ve seen monthly visits to the nzavocado.co.nz website double since September as a result.

here in New Zealand, where a relatively small population of 4.5 million is relied upon to enjoy topping their toast, sprucing up their salads, and sipping their way through smoothies made from all of our fresh avocado crop that does not go to export.

In the lead up to this season, our domestic market planning with avocado suppliers across New Zealand focussed on identifying innovative promotion activities to reach as many consumers as possible and to engage as many players along the value chain as we could in our promotions programme.

Compared to grocery brands that you see in other parts of the supermarket, our budgets for promoting fresh produce

Perhaps the most satisfying promotions activity we have undertaken this season is an innovative twist on an old favourite for fresh produce marketers that combined in-store supermarket sampling with the exponential engagement power of social media. The end result saw 1,200 shoppers in New Zealand’s busiest supermarkets spreading the avocados amazing anytime message to 80,000 of their friends and family on Facebook.

Shoppers were engaged with avocado samples and offered a

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chance to have a “selfie” with Ollie Avocado. If they tagged their selfie with Ollie Avocado on Facebook, they entered the draw to win a shopping voucher at the supermarket.

This also meant that all their friends on Facebook would see the photo of them enjoying an avocado sample with Ollie.

Using social media as a marketing tool is nothing new; the additional value of this activity was that it engaged and benefitted a number of critical players along the avocado value chain.

Avocado marketers provided the fruit supply for the tastings and booked the demo slots to align with avocado promotions weeks in the stores.

The supermarkets provided the sampling locations and shoppers, and in turn received an increase in avocado sales on sampling days and the exposure of their store in the background of each of the 1,200 “selfies”.

NZ Avocado provided the avocado character Ollie Avocado and Facebook fan base to link back to and the shoppers involved not only become online advocates for avocados but also for the stores they were purchasing from.

Moving forward, more of our promotion focus will be on how we use social media to drive real engagement with consumers in New Zealand and our export markets, what we can learn from them, testing our messages, imagery and story of avocados from New Zealand, and using the consumer to generate content such as recipes.

One of the tools we use to encourage innovation in avocado promotion is a contestable promotions fund. It was pleasing to recently see an avocado label that was brought to life with NZ Avocado contestable funding support go viral on social media and news sites globally.

Freshmax, an avocado exporter, and New Zealand avocado marketer developed the label to indicate stages of ripeness in an avocado using the skin colour. The label was originally developed and implemented in Thailand and is now being used in New Zealand and other markets.

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Following a post from a consumer on social news site Reddit, an image of the label on a New Zealand avocado has gone viral and articles about the label have appeared on more than 70 news sites around the world, creating fantastic visibility for avocados from New Zealand. I had the fortune of meeting with Loren Zhao, co-owner of Fruit Day, China’s largest online fresh produce retailer recently.

Loren mentioned that he had seen the label on news sites in China, which reminded us that innovation in our own backyard can easily capture attention of key influencers in our export markets.

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New faces Logan Whenuaroa Research Associate

Logan Whenuaroa’s aim to become involved in a “growing” industry, in every

sense of the word, has been achieved by joining New Zealand Avocado as a research associate.

“I was looking for a career which I could grow into, as well as being part of a team involved in a growing industry involved in the food chain and this job certainly ticks all the boxes.”

Reports

The New Zealand avocado industry is in an exciting growth stage and its orchardists grow a highly nutritious fruit, says Logan who has returned to his home city of Tauranga to take up the role.

He brings to his new career a strong mix of practical and academic skills.

Logan Whenuaroa

“Prior to my move, I worked as a landscaper in Auckland and had a strong interest in urban horticulture. At the same time I was studying extramurally for a Bachelor of Agriscience degree through Massey University.

“I have a vested interest in horticulture and grow a lot of my own plants.”

Now back in the Bay of Plenty where plants grow so well, Logan has a small greenhouse where he enjoys growing plants from seed, as well as cloning and propagating plants, including fruit trees such as figs and feijoas.

“I also like growing topiary plants, but that project is just in its infancy,” says Logan, who has moved back to Tauranga with his partner.

Logan’s role with New Zealand Avocado includes helping implement research projects, liaising with growers, being involved in trials and data collection.

“My goal is to help add value for growers.”

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John Emett Orchard Management & Grower Services - Just Avocados, Avoworks

Just Avocados and Avoworks are delighted to announce the appointment of John Emett to their team.

John has been involved in the horticulture industry for most of his working life and is well-known to the Bay of Plenty avocado industry through his role as Avocado Manager at DMS for the past 12 years.

John Emett

Reports

John’s core responsibilities at Just Avocados are to work with growers to help them achieve their orchard goals and to develop the Just Avocados business across all regions, but with a heavy focus on the mid and far north. He will also work closely with Orchard Productivity Manager, Erica Faber, to provide technical support to these growers.

“John has extensive knowledge of the horticulture industry, and specifically working with avocado growers on compliance requirements for export, orchard management, and logistics,” says Jarrod Redwood, Just Avocados General Manager Grower Services & Operations.

Within Avoworks, John will extend the current orchard management portfolio and provide management and orchard leasing expertise.

“I am passionate about delivering exceptional customer service, and transferring information to growers to help them maximise the potential on their orchards.”

“I enjoy the challenge that growing avocados brings, and the fact that globally it is on the rise across most countries makes it an exciting crop to be involved with,” says John.

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Hi neighbour I’ve seen you working hard in your orchard – it’s looking great. You’ll want your efforts to pay off next season so I need to let you know about AVOCO. It’s the export marketing company that more than 800 growers supplied in the 2016-17 season. Before the next harvest, they’d love for you to join them too.

AVOCO is grower-led so they understand what’s important to you and me who want the security of knowing their fruit is in the most capable of hands. Over the past four years, the team has worked hard to build trusted market relationships in Australia and in Asia where consumers can’t get enough of our premium New Zealand avocados.

In fact, almost two-thirds of fruit goes direct to Australian retail, from which we benefit in the way of outstanding Orchard Gate Returns.

AVOCO’s ability to manage the supply and maximise market opportunities is second-to-none so we can rest easy knowing we’ll always be well rewarded each and every season.

As growers, we all need support and advice every now and again. AVOCO’s experienced technical team is always there to answer all of our questions to help us make decisions that see the orchard performs at its best. This knowledge ensured AVOCO growers overcame big technical challenges affecting the industry last season. When the going gets tough, it’s reassuring to know AVOCO will always work hard on your behalf to achieve success.

I know trust and loyalty isn’t given lightly, but with AVOCO’s grower-led ethos, consistency, technical excellence and expertise in international marketing, it makes sense to be part of the movement committed to growing the industry and its value.

Your AVOCO friend over the orchard fence.

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Preventing avocado theft Bevan Jelley, Market Manager, NZ Avocado bevan.jelley@nzavocado.co.nz

As winter approaches and avocado harvest volumes reach their lowest point in the season, the risk of avocado theft in orchards rises.

Reports

As winter approaches and avocado harvest volumes reach

their lowest point in the season, the risk of avocado theft in orchards rises. NZ Avocado is working with NZ Police to prepare for the theft risk period throughout winter of 2017.

The focus of these discussions is on reducing and preventing avocado theft by: • Ensuring NZ police are aware of the danger period for avocado theft and are visibly patrolling high risk areas during that period • Centralising data on reported number of thefts and prosecutions, and raising awareness of avocado theft prosecutions in the media • Connecting with South Auckland community police to actively engage independent fruit stores that are targeted by the traders of stolen avocados • Distributing NZ Avocado information sheets to independent fruit store owners to provide information and education on the tell-tale signs of stolen avocados.

Media will also be used to communicate to New Zealand consumers about avocado seasonality and maturity, food safety issues and poor eating experience that can result from the purchase of stolen avocados.

Dave Flett, a Bay of Plenty grower and a NZAGA & AIC Board member, has recently joined the Police & Rural Stakeholders Partnership as an avocado representative.

The Police & Rural Stakeholders Partnership promotes a collaborative approach between rural communities and the police to raise visibility for agriculture crime and reduce issues for farmers and growers.

“Avocados have been impacted severely at times by thieves”, says New Zealand Avocado CEO Jen Scoular.

“The New Zealand Police provided excellent support for growers at the time but it is important that industry is involved going forward in solutions to protecting avocado crops.

“The increasing value of avocados and the shortage last season created a real problem in April and May this year, with avocados being stolen in the dead of night by what may have been gangs of thieves.

“It is important that horticulture is able to contribute to solutions devised by the New Zealand Police and so we welcome Dave Flett joining the Police and Rural Stakeholders Partnership,” Ms Scoular says.

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BOP Young Fruit Grower of the Year competition

Reports

The 2017 Bay of Plenty Young Fruit Grower competition aims to promote and celebrate the talents of young people employed in the Bay of Plenty fruit-growing sectors.

This year's competition was a fantastic success – read more about the competition and NZ Avocado’s involvement.

The Bay of PlentyYoung Fruit Grower of theYear

competition is a fantastic opportunity to promote the horticulture industry. NZ Avocado have been involved for the past five competitions and have had representation on the BOP Young Fruit Grower competition committee during that time as well. Phillip West, NZ Avocado’s Research Officer, and Jodi Senior, NZ Avocado’s Communications Manager are both on the committee and say they have enjoyed working collaboratively with other industry’s to raise visibility for the horticulture industry.

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conditions were dry and hard. “That did put extra pressure on all the contestants because they had only around 15 minutes to plant the tree and put up the shelter.

“As well as planting the tree, the six contestants were also asked questions around tree health. The level of knowledge among the contestants was good and some had obviously done research into the topic before the event.”

Phillip and Jodi planned and managed the NZ Avocado challenge for the young grower competition and were impressed at the way each contestant set about planting a young tree, even though digging the hole for it and getting in the support stakes wasn’t easy.

Erin Atkinson, technical advisor, Apata Group Limited, Te Puke, was the overall winner of the 2017 Bay of Plenty Young Fruit Grower of the year competition. With a background in kiwifruit, Erin did well in the NZ Avocado tree planting challenge, coming a very close second. As the BOP region winner, Erin will go on to compete for the national 2017 Young Fruit Grower competition title in August.

The challenges for the contest this year were held at the Te Puke A&P Show in February and Phillip says ground

It was Danni van der Heijden that had a slight advantage over other contestants when it came to the New Zealand Avocado

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challenge – her job is in avocado services for Trevelyan's Pack & Cool – but she still had to work hard for her win.

“I did study up on the manual for planting avocado trees before the competition, even though I helped write it when I worked for New Zealand Avocado,” says Danni, who won that challenge, plus three others and was overall runner-up in the competition.

Reports

Twenty-three-year-old Danni has a Bachelor of Science majoring in biology and chemistry. Prior to her current role, Danni managed the new cultivar programme for New Zealand Avocado and was instrumental in its revival and progress over a period of two years. She also has experience in presenting at field days and industry events to communicate results of research projects to industry members.

Four of the six contestants were involved in the kiwifruit industry, and Phillip says he would like to see more young people taking up careers in the avocado industry.

Danni shares that view. “There are so many and varied career opportunities in the avocado industry,” says Danni who enjoys her own very varied role. Among her responsibilities are working with growers, running field days and also in plant propagation in the Trevelyans nursery.

Second runner-up was Aaron Wright, regional manager, EastPack, Te Puke. The other contestants were; Hamish Mckain, production manager kiwifruit, harvest manager avocados, DMS, Te Puna , Hohepa Tatana, senior assistant orchard manager, Onyx Horticulture Limited, Whangarei and Nikesh Gurung, supervisor/assistant manager, Bay Gold Limited, Te Puke.

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DAVID ALDERTON NZ Avocado CEO Jen Scoular presenting NZ Avocado's tree planting challenge winner Danni with her prize.

+64 21 505 814 dalderton@freshmax.co.nz

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Opinion piece – Structural pruning Phillip West, Research Officer, NZ Avocado Phillip.west@nzavocado.co.nz

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With the industry facing a lighter crop for the coming season, structural pruning will be on the minds of many growers. We have asked a few growers and a pruning contractor to share their opinions on the topic.

Structural pruning aimed at generating regrowth closer to the centre of a tree allows sunlight into the base of the tree.

The avocado industry has well and truly adopted structural pruning to address encroachment and shading within the orchard. In the past, whole trees where thinned to provide remaining trees with adequate light. This resulted in larger trees that presented difficulties in terms of spray coverage and harvesting fruit in the higher parts of the tree. While many orchards with wider spacing perform very well on a production per hectare basis, even these growers employ some level of structural pruning to maintain productive trees. Without a dwarfing root stock, and even if there was one, structural pruning is likely to be with us for the foreseeable future.

With many growers facing a light crop for the upcoming season, they are seizing the opportunity to address structural issues within the orchard without the heartache of dropping fruit on the ground. Trees without much fruit can be expected to flower heavily come spring. This means it should be possible to make some major cuts and still expect enough

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flower to remain to set a respectable crop. Indeed, followup flower pruning in spring may be required if flowering intensity is still high. Keep in mind that it may be two years before any regrowth flowers and sets fruit. Adequate light is required on regrowth before it will become floral.

Consideration should be given to both the short and longer term impact pruning can have on production when making decisions on how and what to prune.

Brian Robinson – Katikati grower

My oldest trees are 45 years old and I have been structurally pruning them for 34 years. I believe that large trees produce a lot of fruit and I have several that are 14m high but I can pick every fruit on my orchard. However, I am slowly pruning to get my trees to no more than 10m high. I have been a picking contractor and I know the importance of having an easy access into the tree and the importance of getting light to the tree so it can set fruit on the whole tree, not just the tops.

When I prune a tree, I take out one major limb - preferably from the centre of the tree. I then target the top of the next highest limb, cutting this limb flush above a side branch - this helps eliminate regrowth. I also remove crossover branches, deadwood or thin branches from within the tree.

November. I consider letting fruit set and then pruning them off in autumn to be a waste of the trees’ energy and limited resources. Sometimes pruning between October and November is not possible due to other work commitments at that time - e.g. kiwifruit. But the sooner it is done, the better.

By working the tree slowly (removing no more than two limbs per year) the trees accepts it and this helps to eliminate regrowth. I am also opening the north face of some trees.

I believe that annual structural pruning reduces the impact of phytophthora by improving the root to leaf ratio. This results in healthier trees and bigger fruit.

I don’t majorly prune every tree every year, as I like to see what growth pattern the tree takes on after pruning and this sometimes takes a couple of years.

On our avocado orchard at Glenbrook Beach we consider annual structural pruning to be a vital component of our orchard management system. My belief is that the ideal time to perform this task is immediately after harvest and before next season’s fruit set. This means October to

In my opinion structural pruning of avocados is essential and the sooner in the life of the tree it is done, the better.

It is a great way of regulating the height and width of trees to your requirements. It improves spray penetration, creates easier access for picking, and appears to be a major driver in reducing irregular bearing and achieving higher production with better pack-out rates.

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David French – Pukekohe grower

Mike Dillon – Bay of Plenty pruning contractor

In the opinion piece relating to phosphonate published in the March 2017 issue of Avoscene, Jerome Handy referred to 'metalaxyl prills'.This should have read 'phosphonate prills'. We apologise for any confusion this may have caused.

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wer-

Important elements to consider in Packer-Grower contracts It is that time of the year again when packers and growers

need to agree contracts for the coming season. Ultimately growers have the authority to determine what happens to every piece of fruit that is picked from their orchard. The mechanism that enables growers to exercise this authority is their contract with their packer and exporter.

I expressly require my Class 3 / TAG 3 fruit to be sent for processing only.

The key strategic objectives of the avocado industry as set out in the avocado Export Marketing Strategy are:

Ownership of fruit

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• That grower returns are sustainable and maximised.

As a Grower I have ownership of my Class 2 and Class 3 fruit until:  The Packer purchases my fruit  The fruit is sold to a processor  The fruit is transferred to another industry party Money Flow

Class 1 / Export Grade

How are my funds processed?

This fruit is covered under a grower’s Exporter-Grower contract. Refer to the article on page 35 that outlines the important elements to consider in the Exporter-Grower contracts.

 Returns for Class 2 are pooled  Returns for Class 3 are pooled  Returns for Class 2 and Class 3 are jointly pooled What is the length of the pool season?

To support industry objectives, returns from all markets should be maximised. This requires a disciplined approach to the handling and sale of Class 2 and Class 3 avocados.

Set out below are some questions a grower might ask themselves or their prospective packer about the conditions for the sale and disposal of Class 2 and Class 3 fruit within the contract they are entering into.

Class 2 / TAG 2

Who will be responsible for selling my Class 2 fruit?

Who will my Class 2 fruit be sold to?

Will my Class 2 fruit be sold through open wholesale markets or through a direct to retail program?

Class 3 / TAG 3

How will my Class 3 / TAG 3 fruit be disposed of?  Given back to me the Grower  Sold to a processor  Sold elsewhere • Please specify – e.g. packhouse gate sales

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I do not permit my Class 3 / TAG 3 fruit to be sold for fresh consumption through any channel.

•T hat the industry is focused on producing and selling a premium product with the objective of obtaining a sustainable, high value return in all markets, including New Zealand.

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Suggested inclusion to your contract:

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Will I receive progress payments? If so, when?

What costs will be deducted from me for handling my Class 2 and Class 3?  Commission. What is the rate of commission?  P acking costs are charged within my main packing contract  What are the additional costs e.g. Coolstorage?

Insurance

Has the Packer secured insurance for my Class 2 and Class 3 fruit?

If yes, what insurance is in place?

Orchard to packhouse insurance Packhouse insurance Cover from packhouse to market place Other M arine Insurance in place as outlined in my packer contract covers Class 2 and Class 3 fruit.

Who covers the cost of in-market insurance or quality claims?     

 Charged to my pool • If so, did the previous year’s pool pick up any charges?  Charged to me  Worn by the Packer

Roadmap to Exporter-Grower Contracts The Exporter-Grower contract is a commercial contract

setting out the detail of how your fruit is marketed and paid for. When a grower signs the grower-exporter contract, they commit to when they sign up for an exporter to market and sell their fruit and as such, care should be taken to ensure growers are aware of the detail of the contract and are happy with that detail.

NZ Avocado sets out here some questions a grower might ask their prospective exporter, about the contract they are entering in to.

1. Who is accountable for my fruit along the supply chain?

• Fruit can be dumped or culled for many reasons, including age or quality issues.

• You might ask the exporter to disclose the volume of fruit in your pool not sold in the previous season, to calculate the impact on your pool return. Fruit sold for zero value should also be included in this calculation.

3. What insurance cover is provided for my fruit?

4. What happens to fruit with residue levels over the limit?

• You may like to ask your exporter if there were instances in the previous season of residue issues preventing fruit entering a market, and any costs associated with that.

• How are the rules around this set out in my contract?

5. You need to know if you are part of a pool or not, and if so, you should understand how the pool rules apply to your fruit. Some questions you may ask about your pool: • What is the time period of the pool – is this across the whole season, an early season pool or a late season pool, or some combination of those?

• Is this a regional pool or across all regions the exporter sources fruit from?

• What costs are included in the pool return?

• What is the size profile of the pool, e.g. are you being paid separately for 28s, 30s and 32s or being paid an average return over those sizes?

Exporter Market Planning

The setting of a market or business plan by the exporter will be an important aspect to ensure return in value for your fruit is maximised and market growth is sustainable.The market plan may not be part of the contract but presented at grower meetings after the contracts have been signed.

Questions you might like to ask about the market planning include: 1. What are you as my exporter doing to develop markets for the expected increases in industry wide production volumes?

• Which markets are you targeting and why?

• Are you collaborating with other exporters in any market development?

• What sort of activities do you undertake to develop a market?

• How will you measure market development progress?

• What is the split of export to destinations other than Australia?

2. What is your market development plan for the next five years?

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• In most contracts, the grower owns the fruit, until it is sold to the retailer or wholesaler in market.

• However, where that fruit is part of a pool, the pool itself takes financial accountability for that fruit. This means that your pool result will be impacted by the quality of all fruit in that pool except in circumstances specifically outlined in the contract, such as noncompliance to the spray programme or excess residues.

2. What happens to fruit that is shipped but not sold?

6. What percentage of growers in my pool are applying a “best practice” copper spray programme? Are these fruit being tracked to see if they perform better?

3. What promotional support is provided at retail, by the exporter, to grow demand for avocados from New Zealand?

Growers have a key role to play in providing exporters with premium quality fruit by applying best practise on-orchard and ensuring their spray programme provides the market access status that their exporter requires.

To ensure sustainable returns for export fruit new markets are constantly being developed. These markets are further away and the supply chain is more demanding on the outturn of your fruit.

This requires greater discipline in the application on orchard best practice. Distant markets are more likely to expose any shortcomings in the quality of your fruit.

The science around the application of 8 coppers to protect the robustness of the fruit in the market is strong. Are you applying coppers based on this best practise science to ensure your fruit is protected for even longer journeys as exporters develop new markets?

Good marketing requires excellent planning and a consistent supply of fruit to the customer through the season. It is important that growers are aware of how the harvest of their own crop meets the needs of their exporter’s market plan.

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new pollination options - DP

options for growers:

Progress towards developing new pollination options for growers Part 1, Bumble bees David Pattemore, Heather McBrydie, Brian Cutting & Lisa Evans, The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited, Private Bag 3230, Waikato Mail Centre, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand

For the last four years, our Pollination and Apiculture team at Plant & Food Research have been leading a research programme, “From Bee Minus to Bee Plus and Beyond”, to develop new pollination strategies for growers in New Zealand.

Read more about this programme below.

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Our aim is to assist growers in reducing dependence on

honey bees for pollination by providing a range of new pollination tools that can be used as needed. The research is supported by contributions from our partner orchardists and farmers, with funding provided by the Ministry for Business, Innovation & Employment, NZ Avocado, Zespri Group Ltd, Summerfruit NZ and the Foundation for Arable Research.

Our six-year research programme has three main objectives: developing techniques to use bumble bees in orchards; identifying ways to manage wild pollinators and increase their contribution; and improving the efficiency of honey bees as pollinators. Here we provide an update on our bumble bee objective; an update on the other two objectives will be included in the next edition of Avoscene.

Bumble bees are common across the country and are produced commercially to pollinate greenhouse tomatoes.

Bumble bees can transfer large amounts of pollen between flowers and continue foraging in inclement conditions that might deter honey bees. Using bumble bees to complement honey bee pollination is likely to be a significant advantage for avocado production, especially as Hass flowers open at varying times during the day.

Wild bumble bees already contribute to pollination, but their contribution is currently unmanaged. Because bumble bee colonies are much smaller than honey bee colonies, the challenge is to provide sufficient colonies in orchard environments to make a significant contribution to fruit set.

Figure 5: Bumble bee queens were fitted with miniature radio transmitters and tracked as they flew around a blueberry orchard, foraging and searching for nest sites.

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Our bumble bee research covers two themes: developing an underground bumble bee ‘bunker’ to encourage the establishment of wild colonies (Figure 1), and developing

Figure 2: Artificial banks at the entrance of bunker tunnels were created by digging ditches in front of the tunnels and placing the spoil on top.

techniques to reduce the cost of commercial production of colonies so that the cost of stocking orchards with bumble bees is comparable to that of honey bee hives.

the success rate. Bunkers placed into banks were approximately twice as successful as bunkers in flat ground. In 2015 we created artificial ‘banks’ at the entrance of the tunnels (Figure 2), to test whether this would increase occupancy. In terms of the likelihood of finding bees in the bunkers, bunkers with artificial banks significantly outperformed bunks on flat ground, and were as successful as bunkers in existing banks (Figure 3). But this did not follow through to an increase in the rate of successful colony establishment, which remains a significant challenge.

The first theme aims to provide a very low cost, low management option that utilises the natural population of bumble bees already in orchards, whereas the second theme aims to give growers the option of bringing in a mixture of pollinators to pollinate their crop.

In spring, bumble bee queens seek a hole in the ground in which to establish their colony, so we are working on developing an artificial nest site based around a cement and pumice ‘bunker’ design that is buried in the ground.

The bunkers have a lid to enable us to check for bees and a tunnel that leads from the base of the bunker to the surface for the bees to enter. The challenge is not only to get the queen bees into the bunker, but also to encourage them to establish a colony successfully.

We now have more than 1000 experimental bunkers installed in orchards and farms in Northland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Hawke’s Bay and Marlborough, including 10 avocado orchards. Over the last four years we have tested variations in bunker design, tunnel types, and nesting material, to determine the bees’ preferences. Overall, we found bumble bees in around 30% of bunkers, with successful colonies forming in about 18% of bunkers. We saw significant variation among orchards, with our most successful sites having colonies in 40-50% of bunkers.

Three big challenges that remain are: how to increase occupancy by queens of the most common species; how to increase the success rate of queens establishing colonies; and understanding the factors that drive the large variation in success between sites.

We have identified a few factors important in improving

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Figure 1: An artificial bumble bee nest box, or ‘bunker’, is buried in the ground in a shelter belt in an avocado orchard nearWhangarei.

In the last year we have been actively pursuing several lines of research. Firstly, we have continued to run experiments to understand what governs nest site selection by queens of the most common bumble bee species, which are less likely to occupy the bunkers than we would expect, given their prevalence. We’ve run choice experiments in flight cages (Figure 4), and tracked queen bees flying around a blueberry orchard as they were looking for nest sites, using a world-first automatic tracking system (Figure 5).

Secondly, we are conducting grower surveys to determine what factors would make our bunkers an appealing option for growers. This information will provide us with direction for the future of the bunker research, to ensure we don’t pursue a system that won’t be practical in orchards.

Thirdly, we have been working to establish a method to estimate the total number of bumble bee colonies in orchards by looking at the genetic relatedness between bumble bee workers. This will help us to establish whether higher bunker success is due to higher background bumble bee populations or due to some factor at the site that makes the bunkers more attractive than natural nest sites.

We aim to roll this method out on a larger scale in our

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orchards this coming spring.

Our second theme in the bumble bee research programme has been to develop a new model for commercial production of bumble bee colonies that reduces the cost per colony, and thus makes it affordable to place larger numbers of established colonies into orchards. Currently available commercial colonies are targeted at glasshouse tomato production, but are too costly per unit for largescale orchard pollination. We are in the final stages of testing a new approach that would reduce the cost of commercially produced colonies using a different colony development method.

Other growers might prefer to purchase commercial colonies to supplement wild colonies and achieve a higher pollination contribution by bumble bees. Used in conjunction with managed honey bees and strategies to encourage other pollinators, growers will be able to tailor their pollination management to the conditions of their individual orchards and the environment.

We will share more about our work with honey bees, flies and other pollinators in the next edition of Avoscene.

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In the future we hope to see a range of techniques used to

manage bumble bees for pollination. Growers might be attracting wild bumble bees into orchards using bunkers, and monitoring these nests, to have a firm grasp on the amount of pollination provided by these colonies.

Figure 3: Bunkers with artificial banks were more likely to be occupied by bumble bees than bunkers on flat land, and had similar occupancy rates to bunkers with ‘natural’ bank entrances (blue bars). Banks did not have a detectible positive effect on the likelihood of a colony being successfully established (orange bars). Significant differences between the bars can be determined by non-overlapping standard error bars.

Figure 4: A flight cage where choice experiments were conducted with queen bumble bees to determine preferences for different tunnel types.

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Can small trees/high density plantings be manageable in New Zealand?

Edouard Perie, Andrew Barnett and Grant Thorp, The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited

The MBIE Avocados for Export programme includes a project looking at small tree, high intensity plantings. Dr Edouard Perie and his team have been working with growers to develop high intensity plantings and evaluate the feasibility of maintaining these spacings.

Read below to see how this project is progressing.

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Dave and Julie Fletts orchard showing the small trees planted on their bank.

The concept of small trees – high density plantings – is

primarily based on intercepting the maximum amount of sunlight over the total planted area, as soon as possible after planting, to achieve high yields early in the life of the orchard. Indeed, trees in high density plantings are planted much closer than traditional plantings, with some extreme cases in South America where trees are planted as close as 1.25 metres apart. The closer the planting distance, the faster the total ground area is covered by leaf canopy and the more incoming light is intercepted allowing potential for greater productivity per hectare. However, the fertile and free draining soils of avocado producing regions in New Zealand, combined with a warm temperate climate, can result in very vigorous tree growth which presents challenges of how to prevent the closely planted trees from overcrowding too soon without requiring major pruning efforts which, in turn, can invigorate the tree even more.

In 2014, Plant & Food Research, in partnership with NZ Avocado and funded by the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), established a trial on a grower’s property in Oropi, near Tauranga. The objective of this trial is to understand the practicalities of managing high density plantings in New Zealand.

The trees were planted in spring 2012 at a spacing of five metres between rows and three metres between trees on a north facing slope that is too steep for machinery. The target is to have a maximum tree height of 2.5 metres so that all fruit can be picked from the ground with short picking poles. Table 1 gives details about tree management.

The first pruning was carried out in spring 2014 when the trees were two years old. The plan was to reshape these young trees by moderate pruning over two to three years, removing a third or less of the canopy at any pruning time to maintain leaf area. The trees might be pruned once or twice a year, if needed. In spring, the main pruning event would take place after harvest when it is time to decide on the structure of the trees, while in autumn, a light prune might be carried out, working around the current crop.

In the first year (April 2015), branches were tied down to spread the trees as much as possible, to encourage the leaf canopies to capture more light by covering more ground area. A blue pallet strap was tied around the branch and attached to a steel peg forced into the ground. This was done in autumn, keeping the angle of each branch above the horizontal to limit the vertical regrowth of the terminal shoots and to encourage flowering and fruiting.

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Since this initial pruning and tying down of branches, two pruning methods have been compared:

Single leader, pyramidal shape One vertical branch is selected as the main trunk, keeping the top tier of the tree smaller than the middle tier, which is smaller than the bottom tier.

The multi-leader, vase /bowl shape is the “industry standard”, being similar to most avocado trees in New Zealand, and pruning is performed by commercial pruning contractors. The single-leader pyramidal shape is inspired from the management of other fruit trees such as apple, and is carried out by the researchers. Researchers and pruning contractors collaborate and discuss to learn from each other.

In addition, we are testing the plant growth regulator uniconazole-P (marketed as SUNNY®) on half the trees in each pruning system, as well as on a group of unpruned trees.

There are mixed reports about the effect of uniconazole-P. Some trials suggest an increase in flowering and fruit set, higher yield, bigger fruit, less ridging and reduced shoot growth, while other trials suggest very little or no effect at all. The rates and volumes sprayed so far are detailed in Table 2. The goal of the November application (during flowering) is to increase fruit set, while the December and January applications are aimed primarily at reducing shoot growth.

This grower trial is in its early stages of establishment, and it will take several years to understand the practicalities of high density plantings. However, the first lessons learnt include: • In year three (December 2015), the trees had covered approximately one third of the ground area, therefore capturing only one third of available sunlight in the orchard.

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Multi leader, vase/bowl shape Four to six branches are selected as major limbs, often cutting out the centre of the tree.The branches are kept well-spaced.

• More pruning cuts were required in the 2014-15 season to reshape the single leader pyramidal trees than needed on the multi-leader vase/bowl shaped trees.

• However, in the 2015-16 season, more pruning cuts were required to maintain the multi-leader trees than the single-leader trees.

• It is too early to conclude anything about the effect of uniconazole-P. • In spring 2016, these trees produced between 14.6 kg and 19.2 kg of fruit per tree on average, with no significant differences between pruning methods. These yields are equivalent to 7.5 tonnes and 9.8 tonnes of fruit per hectare for these four-year-old trees.

These encouraging yields are a good result if they can be increased over time, which should in theory be the case, as the canopy covers more ground area and intercepts more sunlight. We’ll keep an eye on it!

The authors would like to acknowledge the growers involved in small tree high-density trials, Dave and Julie Flett and John and Cindy Cotterell. Pruning contractors Michael Dillon and Chris Turner are thanked for their work and help.

The authors are also thankful to the small tree work group for constructive discussions when setting up the trial, as well as NZ Avocado for its support, and MBIE for its investment into the research.

Growers in research small trees, high density

Frost Protection

In addition to one hectare of established avocado orchard, Dave and Julie Flett’s property contains a steep slope, unsuitable for conventional plantings of avocado trees.

Dave pondered the idea that if he could keep trees small enough this slope could be planted in avocados – so he decided to give it a go. He planted the slope at a high density, with the spacings of the trees 5m between the rows and 3m between trees going down the slope.

A workshop was recently held at Dave Flett’s orchard, to showcase the small tree trial. Consultants, pruning contractors and grower liaisons were invited to join Plant & Food Research scientist Edouard Perie, avocado grower Dave Flett and NZ Avocado staff to discuss the progress of the trial, the practicalities of managing high intensity plantings and given with the opportunity to provide input into the development of the project.

Edouard presented the work to date and outlined the principles behind the project and what he wanted to achieve through it. Edouard explains in further detail in his article.

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As part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Avocados for Export project, Edouard Perie was also looking to explore if small tree - high density plantings were manageable in New Zealand conditions.

Dave has generously made available part of his plantings to Edouard for the purpose of this study while managing the remaining part himself with the help of his consultant Colin Partridge.

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Top returns 4 seasons running

Dave Flett also led a great discussion about the small trees in his orchard that are not part of the trial. He answered questions for the attendees about how he manages them and the challenges he has faced to date.

Some of the key points from Dave’s discussion include: • All of the pruning, picking and spraying is done by Dave and family from the ground, reducing the costs of contractors and the need for Hydraladas.

• Small tree, high intensity plantings were a way of utilising land that would be otherwise unsuitable for planting avocado trees.

• There is a necessity for innovation and a creative approach to maintaining these plantings going forward. We may not have all the answers, but we are learning as we go.

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Tree Decline Weather Station Phillip West, Research Officer, NZ Avocado Phillip.west@nzavocado.co.nz

NZ Avocado has installed weather and soil moisture monitoring stations in Whangarei and Far North regions in response to grower desire to optimise soil moisture management. Read on to find out what weather stations are, why they are used and what we hope to gain by using them.

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PHOTOS

Collaborative research with Plant & Food Research,

Waikato University and growers participating in the Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) is providing valuable insight into how much water avocado trees need, and the importance of soil moisture management. As our understanding grows, we need to understand how growers can best use this information to improve their orchard performance in a cost effective way.

The recently installed weather stations monitor both soil moisture levels and climatic conditions, producing information that can support an orchard manager with irrigation and soil moisture management decisions. The stations will also provide more accurate weather information for the wider growing areas where they are located. These stations are funded through the PGP programme, with members of the tree decline working groups, in both Whangarei and the Far North, providing a valuable test bed to assess the practicality and value of such stations to orchard productivity and management.

Work by Waikato University PhD student Teruko Kaneko has highlighted the negative impact that insufficient water can have on fruit size and nutrient uptake. Date collected is also

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giving us a much clearer picture of how much water avocado trees actually use. Currently Teruko’s work is being used to generate the Regional Soil Moisture Updates that are sent each fortnightly Avoconnect email. While the weekly water balance tables may be helpful to give growers an estimate of water loss or gain in a particular week, they are not specific to each orchard, nor do they factor in any irrigation being applied. The weather and soil moisture monitoring stations that have been installed will allow more orchard specific application of Teruko’s work and provide growers with more accurate water balance information to help with irrigation decisions.

Growers and industry professionals involved in the PGP: Tree Decline working groups have attributed poor soil moisture conditions with influencing tree health and performance. Often, decline in tree health is associated with heavy rain events and poor tree health is frequently observed in areas of an orchard more prone to excess soil moisture levels. Insufficient water due to poor sprinkler coverage through dry summer months is also likely to have a negative impact on tree health and productivity.

Each orchard in the trial has a base station with sensors to

monitor rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and irradiance (sun intensity). This allows the calculation of evapotranspiration, a measure of water lost from the soil due to plant use and evaporation. Under the base station, soil moisture is being monitored at depths of 10cm, 30cm and 50cm using Acclima TDT SDI-12 sensors that measure volumetric soil moisture and temperature. A second soil moisture monitoring station is also established in a different location within the orchard thought to have different water use or soil moisture characteristics. The second station has soil moisture probes at the same depths as the base station and reports the data back to the base station via UHF. Reports

Data from each station is reported continuously via cellular signal and is available to view at any time on smart phone or computer. This provides the grower with detailed, up-todate information to help inform irrigation decisions.

Case studies will be developed of each orchard to better understand how the information is being used and what value the growers are getting from it. These case studies will be shared with the wider industry to help growers make a decision about the value of installing a similar system on their own orchard. This kind of technology is getting cheaper, with several commercial options now available.

Many councils now require more detailed reporting of irrigation use and such systems can often easily incorporate irrigation flow meters to satisfy council reporting requirements without laborious manual recording. However it is done, soil moisture and orchard climate monitoring can provide valuable insight to orchard performance and can help inform orchard management decisions.

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New Technologies to aid our industry Phillip West, Research Officer, NZ Avocado Phillip.west@nzavocado.co.nz

We live in an age where the phone you’ve just bought is outdated almost the moment you walk out the shop – assuming you bought it at a shop at all and didn’t order it online. With all this fancy new technology, what’s available now, and what’s in the pipeline to make growers’ lives easier and more productive?

NZ Avocado is dedicated to helping solve challenges

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that hold back both growers and the industry as a whole.

Some challenges lead us to contact external experts in particular areas or to go looking for technology that may be able to help. NZ Avocado can play a role in trialling new technology and provide the results to growers to allow them to assess the value for themselves and their own situation. Soil moisture monitoring and crop estimation are two such examples.

Through the Primary Growth Partnership: Tree Decline project and from talking to many growers, soil moisture management is one challenge faced by a large proportion of growers. With variability in soil composition from one side of a block to the other and variation in tree size, it’s difficult to optimise irrigation and identify areas that could possibly benefit from additional drainage. Electromagnetic (EM) or Electrical Conductivity (EC) mapping may be one tool that can be used to help with this. EM mapping involves towing a sensor behind a vehicle (Figure 1) in transects across the orchard and then using the data collected to generate a map of soil conditions (Figure 2). A survey can be used to identify variability in soil type or structure across the orchard and may help with the setup of irrigation zones or sprinkler head selection. By incorporating slope information, which is generally collected at the same time, areas where water may pool can be identified as well as probable water courses within the orchard (Figure 3). The sensor detects changes in the conductivity of the soil to a depth of up to 1.5m but can also look at shallower profiles.

Figure 1. EM survey sensor that is towed behind vehicle that collects data to generate maps. Agrioptics.co.nz

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Sandy soils generally have a low conductivity and clay soils generally have a higher conductivity. This means, with a small amount of ground truthing, an orchard map can be generated that shows differences in soil texture. Electrical conductivity has been shown to also relate to other soil properties such as water holding capacity, cation exchange capacity and compaction, and can provide very valuable information about an orchard.

EM surveying may also help with decisions about where best to locate soil moisture sensors within the orchard.

Advancements in soil moisture monitoring are continuing with many systems now allowing the ability to check moisture levels from a smartphone or computer, turn on or off irrigation systems, as well as automatically generating reports for councils with water use information. These systems, while coming down in price, still aren’t cheap, so ensuring sensors are located appropriately will ensure the most value is obtained from such a system. EM surveying is currently a commercially available service and if you are interested in finding out more, please visit the Agrioptics New Zealand website. NZ Avocado plan to trial the technology this winter in a number of orchards and will report the results in a future edition of Avoscene.

Unfortunately, avocado production is still variable from season to season creating headaches for growers and exporters alike, as well as everyone in between. Research is currently underway in Australia to see if satellite images can be used to estimate crop load and NZ Avocado is in regular contact to see if the technology may translate to New Zealand. Andrew Robson, from the Precision Agriculture Research Group at the University of New England, NSW, Australia is leading the work and while he believes more research is required before they can be confident in the system, early signs are promising. By looking at the ratios of certain wavelengths of light being reflected from the canopy of the avocado trees, Andrew’s group have been able to come up with some algorithms that show good correlation with both yield and fruit size. This may lead to more accurate forecasting of not only yield but also fruit size,

providing a much clearer picture of the number of trays expected from each orchard and possibly also from each block within the orchard (Figure 4). Satellite technology may seem a little farfetched, but you can now book your own satellite launch from the Mahia peninsula as easily as you would book a flight. The New Zealand government has just set up the Centre for Space Science Technology (CSST) to facilitate data utilisation and technology in this area crop estimation is one of their targets, but is slightly lower

down the list of priorities. Soil moisture management, however, is one of their first priorities.

Orchard life can get busy and as the industry grows it will be important to try work smarter, not harder, to make gains and deliver on the potential we have. NZ Avocado will continue to keep a watchful eye for new technologies that may add value to the grower, but often it’s growers themselves that see the best opportunities for innovation.

Reports

Figure 2. Map of the variability in electrical conductivity across a 331 ha dairy farm. Agrioptics.co.nz

19 April 2013

29 May 2014 Figure 3. Map showing the likely path of water following a rain or irrigation event. Agrioptics.co.nz

Figure 4. Maps derived from the linear relationship between measured average fruit weight and satellite imagery. (Robson et al 2014)

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Reports

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Avocado yields hold their own Phillip West, Research Officer, NZ Avocado Phillip.west@nzavocado.co.nz

Yields are a key metric by which we measure our performance, but is fruit weight per hectare alone telling the full story?

Avocados are renowned for being a nutrient dense fruit, so

In terms of energy, keeping in mind avocados are full of healthy oils and have very little sugar, avocados have almost five times the amount of energy as apples and about four and a half times the energy of kiwifruit by weight. On a per hectare basis, avocado trees are harvesting and packing away more energy per hectare than kiwifruit and are up there with the apple industry (figure 2).

Avocados have four times the protein of apples and almost twice as much as kiwifruit by weight. However, the higher yields from apple and kiwifruit orchards mean that on a per 100

Kiwifruit is renowned for its dietary health benefits but if dietary fibre alone is considered, avocados have about 60% more than kiwifruit and twice as much as apples. Similar to protein, on a per hectare basis avocados are still not quite at the level of kiwifruit and apple orchards but again aren’t too far away (figure 4).

Avocados are also a very good source of folate and a number of vitamins, comparing well to both the apple and kiwifruit industries.

Reports

how do the yields of some of these key nutrients compare to other successful horticultural industries in New Zealand?

Kiwifruit and apples sit above avocados in terms of both export dollars per year and production in tonnes/hectare (figure 1). The apple industry in particular achieves some impressive yields of 60-90 t/ha export from their top growers, and kiwifruit has an industry average of more than 30t/ha. In comparison, avocado top growers achieve between 10-16t/ha as a four-year average. When looking at what avocado trees pack into that 10-16 t/ha though, I think we can be rightly proud, while still prodding them on to bigger and better things.

hectare basis avocados are not quite matching but aren’t too far behind (figure 3).

All fruit are nutritious in their own right, often with unique combinations of compounds that provide specific health benefits that we are only just beginning to understand. As growers, it’s easy to lament a low yield but avocados are an extremely rich source of a number of nutrients. The trees work hard to pack these nutrients in to such a tasty and versatile fruit. Thankfully consumers in ever-increasing numbers are realising this and are willing to pay for such a premium product. As we continue to learn as a wider New Zealand horticultural industry, from each other and with each sector, things can only get better.

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Figure 2. Energy produced per hectare of horticultural industries with New Zealand.

Calculated using nutritional information from the food composition concise tables 2014 and orchard yield information from Freshfacts 2015 and the world apple report 2016.

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Figure 3. Protein produced per hectare of horticultural industries with New Zealand.

Calculated using nutritional information from the food composition concise tables 2014 and orchard yield information from Freshfacts 2015 and the world apple report 2016.

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Figure 4. Dietary fibre produced per hectare of horticultural industries with New Zealand. Calculated using nutritional information from the food composition concise tables 2014 and orchard yield information from Freshfacts 2015 and the world apple report 2016.

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Avocentric: New orchardists show miraculous attention to detail

By Elaine Fisher, Journalist, SunMedia

elaine@thesun.co.nz

Reports

David and Christine Mason have used their combined “off-farm” skills to plan and develop a new avocado orchard at Tanners Point north of Katikati.

David and Christine Mason.

Seven hundred Hass on Zutano seedling trees and 100 pollinizers – Zutano, Ettinger and Edrinol varieties – have been planted on the Mason’s orchard north of Katikati.

David’s family have been involved in art, design, planning

Income and lifestyle

and architecture as far back as the family tree goes – and Christine has a science heritage.

Lindsay Heard of Brenmark Hort. Consultants Ltd has worked with the couple since they began developing the orchard two years ago. He is impressed at David’s attention to detail and the way in which he has planned the positioning of the 800 young trees, shelter and irrigation to maximise the four-hectare site.

“David and Christine are new to the industry but this is one of the most meticulous new orchards I’ve seen. Positioning of the shelter has been carefully planned to protect the trees from the westerly winds and the trees have been placed at eight by five spacings,” Lindsay says.

He’s also impressed at how carefully Christine and David have cared for the trees.

“At 18 months old the trees are in excellent health and will each produce one to two trays of fruit this coming season, increasing to two to five the following year.”

David inherited more than planning skills from his ancestors. He’s also a talented artist, which is an asset to his career in the graphic design and advertising industry.

Christine is a BSc qualified English as a Second Language teacher and while the couple are now living on the Tanners Point orchard, she commutes to Auckland to work three days a week.

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Previously the couple commuted to Auckland for work from their South Head lifestyle block until, encouraged by friends and avocado orchardists Ross and Jill Fowler, they moved to the Bay of Plenty and bought an orchard.

“We were looking for something which would provide an income as well as a rural lifestyle and thought avocados could do both. It was a good time to reduce my advertising workload as well,” says David.

Christine and David find avocado trees attractive and believe the industry has a bright future thanks to the industry structure and the increasing international demand for what is among one of the world’s most nutrient dense fruits.

“We came very close to buying an established orchard at Tanners Point but missed out,” says David.

Not long afterward, on a return visit to the harbour-side village, they saw a “for sale” sign on a block of grazing land and within days had entered into an agreement to buy it.

Bankers on side

By January 2015 they had secured the land.

“We have to acknowledge the assistance of Andrew Cutfield, Farmline Manager for ASB Bank in Tauranga. He understood what we planned to do and was prepared to back us with a mortgage when other banks were reluctant to do so,” says David.

David and Christine’s newly developed avocado orchard is adjacent to the harbour-side village of Tanners Point, north of Katikati.

A significant number of old fruit and ornamental trees had to be removed and the huge piles of mulch produced in the process provided an early resource for the new trees.

The land is flat to gently sloping and the couple decided not to contour it. They cultivated the old pasture, adding much needed fertiliser, including 30 tonnes of lime, and sowing a slow growing seed mix, before installing the reticulated irrigation system and planting 700 Hass on Zutano seedling trees and 100 pollenizers – Zutano, Ettinger and Edranol varieties.

Planting pollenizers

It was Lindsay who advised planting 10 per cent of the orchard in pollenizers to increase flower set. When it came to planting, Mike Darling advised David and Christine on planting methodology – each hole received an application of sheep manure and gypsum before the trees were planted.

Mike organised a team to help David, Christine, their three adult children and friends plant the 800 trees.

The young trees were then protected by individual shelters.

With the trees on the burst, the shelter cloth is now being removed. The support stakes will remain until October.

The orchard had a problem with brown beetle – and Christine decided to undertake a pest monitoring course to learn what to look for, and it’s something she has enjoyed.

“It’s certainly increased my observation skills,” says Christine, who also uses morning walks with the Labrador Tanner to keep an eye on what’s happening in the orchard.

David runs his design and advertising business from a home office and a hot desk with one of his largest clients in Mount Maunganui. Plans are to reduce off-farm work as the orchard revenue increases. He’s also responsible for weed control, the irrigation system and regularly mows the orchard and the roadside berm.

Reports

With advice and guidance from Mike Darling of Just Avocados, Lindsay and Ross, the couple began transforming the land from a run-down grazing block to an avocado orchard.

Sheep scrum

“We aim to do as much of the work as we can ourselves. To reduce mowing, we tried a trial with sheep in amongst the trees – the trial lasted about five minutes – they rugbyscrummed the trees. Sheep are now safety fenced into an area of contour unsuitable for avocados.”

The trees receive a regular mix of hard and foliar fertiliser and the mulch is treated to reduce the risk of phytophthora, all based on Lindsay’s recommendations.

Some fruit has been removed but the trees will carry a small crop this year. As they grow the aim is to keep them pruned to manageable height and a confirmation to allow light to the fruit.

“We still have so much to learn and attend field days when we can, plus take advice from those who know so much more than us. The possibility of hedge-row management, instead of the traditional approach to reducing trees as they crowd together, is the current hot topic of conversation after a chat with the Just Avocado team,” says David.

It’s certainly taken a large degree of outstanding motivation to create a new orchard from a green-field site, while giving consideration to their close urban neighbours. It’s been challenging but Christine and David have, by and large, enjoyed the experience of developing an attractive orchard on land which offers views across the upper Tauranga Harbour to the Bowentown entrance.

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Reducing the spread of industry pests Brad Siebert, Biosecurity & Programme Manager, NZ Avocado brad.siebert@nzavocado.co.nz

The avocado industry needs to up its game and maintain a baseline of on-orchard biosecurity practices in order to reduce the spread of avocado pests.

Don’t leave it too late

Reports

Damaging plant/fruit symptoms are often the first visible signs that a pest from overseas has invaded one of our growing regions. By the time it’s presence is detected, it will often have already taken hold and begun spreading through an orchard. Because of this silent spread, well before an imminent threat is known, all industry participants need to be proactive and have an understanding of what actions will help limit the movement of pests and diseases between properties.

There are of course diseases already in New Zealand that can severely impact avocado production. The soil fungus verticillium wilt has only been found in a limited number of New Zealand orchards yet these fungal spores are easily spread between properties via infested soil and plant material. Any proactive steps you can take to reduce the movement of contaminated soil onto your property will also reduce the ability of established and exotic soil-borne diseases to infect your trees.

How they might arrive

When a pest population has fully established or an infection has become widespread, many pests may have the potential to simply fly or be blown between properties. However, isolated or recently introduced insects, mites or diseasecausing pathogens are predominantly moved between properties through their association with a medium that’s favourable to their survival, like damp soil or plant material.

Therefore, the most plausible way for an exotic pest to enter your property is on shared orchard equipment or tools that are visibly dirt-laden or have residues of plant material from previous jobs.

Match your measure to your risk

Put your efforts into reducing the movement of organic material onto your production areas - where your trees are planted. Visitors who will not be moving beyond driveways or parking areas are low risk. Contractors who are bringing hydraladas, sprayers or pruning tools into your production area could be high risk.

Dead branches resulting fromVerticillium wilt infection.

What’s my next step?

As a grower: you, or one of your staff, should be meeting external contractors as they arrive at your property to ensure they are not transporting obvious amounts of clumped soil or plant material from a previous job. Many growers can’t practically meet every contractor but they can start to specify an ‘arrive clean’ policy in written their agreement with harvesters, pruning or spray contractors. If equipment or tools do turn up that need attention, it is the grower’s responsibility to provide an adequate hose/wash down area away from production areas.

As a contractor: continue to work with your growers to identify what clean down options are practical and how these might be incorporated into written service agreements.

Many absentee growers will be reliant on your experience to outline what’s achievable and what facilities you’ll require to help reduce the movement of foreign soil/plant material onto their property.

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Reminders at this time of year…

Marisa Till, Research Manager, NZ Avocado marisa.till@nzavocado.co.nz

On the Orchard

At the conclusion of a very successful and busy season for many, a chance to regroup and regather is welcome. This time of year has less urgency than during flowering and harvest but many growers are still busy out on their orchards.

Trees being injected with phosphonate.

With the crop load being reported as ‘patchy’ and many

growers not having much crop at all, now is the prime opportunity for pruning trees. There are many approaches to pruning and no ‘one-size-fits-all’ method. However, there are common principles that appear throughout many canopy management strategies, including maximising light interception and maintaining ease of access for machinery for both spraying and picking. In this edition of Avoscene you will find an opinion piece on structural pruning and you can also visit the NZ Avocado industry website for canopy management videos.

Many growers are also in the testing time – soil and leaf testing as well as root testing for phosphonate levels.

Soil and leaf testing at this time of the year will facilitate the development of targeted fertiliser programmes that can help address any imbalance before the demands of flowering and a new crop set in. Many people will also be

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thinking about phosphonate treatments. We recommend root testing to establish phosphonate levels present prior to treatment and we ask that you share the results with NZ Avocado through leaving the box blank at the bottom of the Hill Laboratories form.

It is important the crusade against fruit rots doesn’t wane over the winter months. It is important for fruit to be protected throughout the season to minimise the potential for fungal inoculum to adhere to the surface of fruit; this latent infection then potentially developing into a body rot on the avocado postharvest.

Many orchards have experienced fruit drop through the autumn. We advise removing mummified fruit from the canopy as well as removing or mulching fruit that has dropped underneath the trees where practical, as these are excellent vessels for inoculum.

AvoGreen Glenys Parton, Industry Systems Manager, NZ Avocado glenys.parton@nzavocado.co.nz

During the market access negotiating process there is an increasing focus on referencing the well-established avocado industry AvoGreen® programme as one of the tools in demonstrating our commitment to monitoring and managing of pests concern to our importing countries.

By highlighting the AvoGreen

Programme as one of our pest management tools, the industry has to be able to give assurance that growers are doing what they are say they are doing, and this must be demonstrated in an auditable way. ®

Although enrolment in the industry AvoGreen programme is mandatory for export growers, an understanding of the record keeping requirements to pass a compliance audit appears to be less clear to some growers. While the majority of the industry is undertaking the programme according to the protocols, there are still gaps in the record keeping.

The following overview of AvoGreen® is a reminder of the requirements of the programme:

calculations and results. The grower should have all the supporting documentation at hand demonstrating the requirements for their orchard are being met.

For audit purposes, an owner-operator should keep a file that contains all the elements of the AvoGreen Protocol as detail in the figure below:

Owner-operator Responsibilities

On the Orchard

Decision and Action tree for deciding on how to carry out pest monitoring

Owner-operators who do their own pest monitoring or pest monitors who work for owner-operators, must record and have on file, a copy of all monitoring results – including those monitoring results that are nil detect or below the threshold.

Pest Monitor Responsibilities

If a grower chooses to use an operator, then the operator is responsible for keeping an accurate record of monitoring for audit. The grower must receive a copy of the monitoring results from the operator every time pest monitoring is carried out.

If a grower chooses to take responsibility for their own AvoGreen monitoring then the grower is responsible for keeping an accurate record of all monitoring, including

For any questions or assistance with your AvoGreen compliance, please call Glenys Parton on 0800 286 2236.

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Prevents waterlogging of soil where high sodium, swelling clay and excess water result in drainage issues

As a fertiliser CaSO4-2H2O is a pH neutral source of readily available calcium and sulphur

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Glenys Parton, Industry Systems Manager, NZ Avocado glenys.parton@nzavocado.co.nz

In 2016 a number of changes to the maturity standards were proposed that impact on both local market and export market maturity testing. These changes have been adopted for the 2017-18 export season.

Best practice maturity standards for fruit destined for the

New Zealand market are focussed on delivering a quality eating product to the customer, especially in the early part of the season. The New Zealand Market Group, facilitated by Bevan Jelley, have reviewed the standard and endorsed the changes set out below.

Changes to the export maturity standard are targeted at continuing to deliver a quality product to the customer, following cool storage and shipping to our export markets.

The changes to be introduced this coming season focus on gathering a more representative sample. These changes have been recommended through the Quality Standards Consultative Group process and adopted by the RPG.

The changes are as follows: Number of fruit per sample

Maximum size of single sample area (hectares)

Minimum Mean Dry Matter

18 out of 20 fruit sampled to be above 20.80% DM

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Changes to Maturity Standards

To book advertising space in the next issue of Avoscene please contact Suzy King at SunMedia Ltd. Booking deadline for the next issue is June 12th, 2017.

Contact Suzy on 021 769 831 email suzy@thesun.co.nz

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Optimising fruit quality through on-orchard best practice.

Glenys Parton, Industry Systems Manager, NZ Avocado glenys.parton@nzavocado.co.nz Logan Whenuaroa, Research Associate, NZ Avocado logan.whenuaroa@nzavocado.co.nz

The perfect looking avocado that leaves the orchard gate can often be the vehicle for the transport of microscopic rots that have infected the fruit early in its life. If left untreated these rots will often only show their true identity at the consumer end of the supply chain.

Unripe fruit rarely displays any rot symptoms pre-

On the Orchard

harvest, making it very hard to assess the level and severity of any potential problem on orchard. The most effective and successful preventative control measures for rots occur on-orchard, early in the life of the fruit. There are limited preventative measures during picking or postharvest that will stop already infected fruit from ultimately expressing rots. However, this should not stop us from being diligent about the management of the potential for spore contamination throughout the supply chain.

A considerable amount of research has been undertaken by the New Zealand avocado industry to better understand factors that influence post-harvest rots. Much of this has been carried out collaboratively by members of the research team at NZ Avocado and Plant & Food Research.

A review of industry-funded research (Everett, 2002), identified the actions in the production chain to improve fruit quality as being: reduction of inoculum, manipulation

of the environment and improving tree/fruit health. In addition, as there will always be some level of inoculum in an orchard, maintaining protection against rots is also a critical strategy.

Findings from Everett’s work suggests the most effective on-orchard practice to influence rots is the use of copper fungicide.

Maintaining protection from rot infection

Copper use as a fungicide has a protectant effect only, not curative. This means it is essential to maintain consistent coverage and retention of copper particles over the fruit surface throughout the season through regular copper application. Results from Everett’s 1999-2001 orchard surveys showed the relationship between fungicide application and rots improved when the number of months that fungicides were applied was analysed, rather than the number of times fungicides were applied (Everett, 1999, 2000; Everett and Pak, 2001; Everett, Boyd, Pak & Cutting, 2007).

The recommended industry best practice is eight evenly spaced copper applications, from the onset of fruit set.

Evenly spaced applications of copper fungicide from the onset of fruit are more important at a time when growth of the fruit is a it’s greatest. Growth of plant material and fruit, wind, rain and rub reduce the level of coverage, and consequently the efficacy of the fungicide (Figure 1).

In addition, it is strongly recommended that protective fungicide applications are made before rainfall events.

Water is the main spore dispersal method and some rotcausing fungi can require surface water to infect. Fungicide applied prior to a rainfall event will provide the best protection against fungal spores dispersed amongst the tree canopy and orchard.

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protective load assists in providing continual fungicidal activity to limit spore germination.

Maintaining tree health

The incidence of rots has been shown to decrease when the amount of Calcium (Ca) in fruit increased. With Ca being an important component in cell wall structure, increasing the amount of Ca in the cell walls strengthens the skin and the flesh of the avocados.

Figure 1. Changes in spray coverage from fruit growth and weather. 1 – initial spray with most of the fruit protected. 2 – Gaps appear and coverage wearing off. 3 – large gaps and minimal coverage to protect against fungi

Reducing sources of inoculum

Removing potential inoculum sources helps minimise the inoculum load under the tree and limits the amount of geminating fungal spores. Currently, NZ Avocado and Plant & Food Research are working with growers and exporters on evaluating a rot prediction tool that will potentially give greater insight into inoculum load of an orchard and how inoculum levels influence post-harvest rots.

Manipulating the environment

The density of the canopy can also influence the level of rots (Everett, 2002). Pruning practices, in addition to supporting tree management and performance, should aim to improve airflow throughout the canopy to reduce humidity and create conditions less conducive to fungal infections. A well-structured canopy will also assist with spray penetration.

Leaf mulch under the tree that has a residual copper

It is theorised that sufficient Ca levels make it harder for the fungus to penetrate, and therefore reduce the amount of body rots in fruit. It is recommended that a grower’s nutrition programme considers the application of aglime, gypsum or dolomite lime to attain a calcium and magnesium to potassium (Ca+Mg/K) ratio above 0.065 in fruit (Everett et al, 2007). Soil and leaf analysis should be done to support decision-making of nutritional applications.

On the Orchard

Dead twigs, leaves, branches and mummified fruit can all harbour fungal inoculum (spores). Where possible, these should be removed from the canopy and either added to the mulch under the tree or removed from the vicinity of the tree to be composted and added back at a later date once the inoculum levels have dropped. Larger twigs and branches can be mulched into smaller pieces to speed their breakdown within the mulch layer (Hartill, Everett, Sale & Pak, 2005).

Getting calcium into the fruit is not simple and is not just a matter of adding it to the soil without caution. This can be dangerous as alkaline calcium products can lead to a higher than required soil pH and/or, along with neutral calcium products, reduce soil potassium and magnesium levels. Lime-induced chlorosis is not something that is easily rectified if it occurs.

Results from Everett’s 1999 orchard survey showed that fruit from trees showing symptoms of phytophthora develop more rots than fruit from healthy orchards.

Phytophthora is a problem for many growers and requires constant management. Best practice is to examine all factors that potentially influence and control phytophthora infections and implement remedial actions that will have a positive impact on fruit quality.

A comprehensive and integrated approach to rot control on orchard and through the supply chain is essential to maintain fruit quality.

References: Everett, K. R. (1999). Orchard survey: effect of pre-harvest factors on postharvest rots.The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand.

Everett, K. R. (2002). Avocado fruit rots: a review of industry funded research. New Zealand Avocado Growers’ Association Annual Research Report, 2, 8–16.

Everett, K. R., Boyd, L., Pak, H. A., & Cutting, J. G. M. (2007). Calcium, fungicide sprays and canopy density influence postharvest rots of avocado. Australasian Plant Pathology Society, (36), 22–31.

Everett, K. R., & Pak, H. A. (2001). Orchard survey: effect of pre-harvest factors on postharvest rots. New Zealand Avocado Growers’ Association Research Report, 1, 12–17.

Hartill, B., Everett, K., Sale, P., & Pak, H. (2005). Proposed mandatory use of copper fungicides. AGA - Copper Use Briefing Paper.

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Frost protection basics Logan Whenuaroa, Research Associate, NZ Avocado logan.whenuaroa@nzavocado.co.nz

With the cooler winter season approaching, protecting trees, their crop and their upcoming flower buds is extremely important.

There are a number of frost protection methods which can be utilised to mitigate the risk of low temperatures that cause damage to fruit and flowers for next season. However the most comprehensive frost protection will be no guarantee for protecting the crop and tree from the negative effects of low temperatures. Effective practices do however, provide a buffer that can mitigate the severity of some cold events and completely protect trees from others.

Establishing frost protection for an orchard can be complicated. Key to decision-making is having an understanding of basic heat transfer principles and how hot/ cold air behaves.

On the Orchard

Fundamentally, methods and tools used for frost protection strategies try to achieve one of three things: • Increase plant hardiness • Retain heat • Add heat Increase Plant Hardiness

Management practices to increase plant hardiness and retain heat within the orchard can be carried out ahead of cold events. These are considered passive systems in terms of frost protection as they don’t require any active input in response to a cold event. These activities can form part of on-orchard best practice in preparation for cold events through the winter and include improving the health of trees to make them more resilient and hardy to cold events. This can be achieved through managing phytophthora and the use of an

Figure 1. Minimum air temperature for Katikati orchard Jun-Jul 2016 at 1.5m & 10m

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appropriate nutrient programme to maximise tree health.

Anything that aids in the hardening off of leaves can also help, especially if trees have a large amount of late summer flush.

Bacteria and fungi can act to nucleate the formation of damaging ice crystals on plant surfaces. Foliar spray applications of products such as copper can help reduce bacteria that promote ice nucleation. Removing dead branches, fruit and leaves from the canopy can help minimise bacteria and fungi that can promote ice nucleation.

Retain Heat

To help guard against the damaging effects of low temperatures it makes sense to retain as much of the heat from the day, within the orchard for as long as possible, through the night.

Keeping the area beneath the trees free of vegetation can increase the amount of energy absorbed by soil that can later be released overnight. A vegetation free, firm soil with good moisture content is the most efficient way to provide natural warmth to orchards on a cold night.

Adding Heat

The addition of heat during a cold event is primarily achieved through the use of active frost protection methods.

These include the use of frost fans, heaters and, most commonly in an avocado orchard, overhead irrigation.

During clear nights there is a net loss of long wave radiation

Figure 2.Warmer air drawn down from the inversion layer and mixed with colder air to prevent air stratification.

(heat) to the sky. Air closest the ground surface cools faster resulting in a heat inversion where the temperature increases with height (Figure 1).

the plant tissue at 0°C or slightly warmer, rather than dropping to more damaging sub-zero temperatures.

Frost fans and heaters utilise this inversion layer. Warm air rises and cools to ambient air temperature where it spreads out and eventually descends to begin the cycle again (Figure 3). However, if there is no inversion layer, air will rise too high and not circulate back down. Frost fans mix air from different layers to increase temperature within orchard (Figure 2).

Overhead irrigation relies on enough water being applied so that energy released during the freezing process as latent heat is enough to offset energy losses (Figure 4). This keeps Method

Frost Fan

Overhead Irrigation

It won’t be long until the arrival of spring, when trees break their dormancy and likely push a heavy flowering.

The occurrence of frost can be a serious problem, not only to this season’s fruit but also next season production. It is important growers consider what actions they can take to help prevent the impact of frost on their orchard.

Advantages

Disadvantages

Cover up to 4 ha Low maintenance Can be used with heaters effectively

Requires inversion layer High installation cost Can be noisy Doesn’t protect against advection frosts

Provides heat via radiation to surrounding objects Works well with frost fans

Inefficient (~75% lost to atmosphere) Labour intensive Fuel is expensive

Low operating costs Multipurpose Effective

High installation costs Risk of crop damage though water logging or ice build up breaking limbs Requires large amount of water Can’t be used with other active frost protection methods

Figure 3. Heaters provide protection from direct radiation and convective mixing of air between the inversion layer. 75-85% of heat lost to atmosphere.

On the Orchard

Heater

Overhead sprinklers can have negative impacts on trees.

For example, if too much water is applied, soils may become water–logged, leading to asphyxiation of roots and increasing the phytophthora pressure. Ice may also build-up to the point that limbs break under the weight of the ice.

Figure 4.Water freezing releases latent heat and ice layer provides insulation from colder air temperatures.

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Industry matters Spray use reminder for Diazinon, Maldison and Acephate MPI Organophosphate and Carbamate Reassessment as applies to Avocado.

Summary of use impact of changes: Diazinon (Dew 500, Dew 600, Diazol)

• The EPA control has set maximum use rates, with a maximum application frequency of 2 times per crop cycle.

• Current HSNO approvals for diazinon-containing substances will be phased out by 1 July 2028.

• Off-label use has been prohibited by MPI. This includes following exact use pattern directions i.e. rate, timing, WHPs and target insect(s).

• The following New Zealand MRLs will be proposed in July 2016: Avocado – 0.1 mg/kg (currently 0.5 mg/kg) Maldison (Malathion, Fyfanon)

• EPA controls: Maximum of 2 applications per crop cycle. For the 500g/L EC formulation, there is a maximum application rate of 4500 gai/ha.

• Off-label use is allowed as dietary intake is unlikely to exceed the Potential Daily Exposure (food) set by the EPA in their reassessment.

Newsroom

• WHPs remain unchanged. See labels (post July 2015) for approved use patterns.

• It is proposed that the existing MRL will be changed, with a proposed avocado MRL of 2 mg/kg (currently 8 mg/kg).

Any proposed MRL change will not be made until the Maximum Permissible Limits (MPL) review is completed in late 2016.

Acephate (Lancer and Orthene)

• Acephate is no longer on the avocado industry approved list of chemicals for use in avocados. Use of this product is by dispensation only.

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Labels and MRLs

Label changes arising from the MPI reassessment, including new use patterns and withholding periods (WHPs), were notified and effective July 2015.

Revised maximum residue limits (MRLs) have been promulgated starting in July 2016.

This notification allowed labels in the marketplace to be replaced over the coming season and reduce unintentional MRL non-compliance by users.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Glenys Parton on phone 07 571 6147 or email glenys.parton@nzavocado.co.nz

The Avocado Problem Solver Field Guide The Avocado Problem Solver Field Guide is available to purchase from the Avoshop section of the NZ Avocado industry website.

toxicities and other disorders that may affect orchards and the quality of fruit reaching the consumer.

This guide has been produced to assist avocado growers and others involved in the avocado supply chain to identify the wide range of pests, diseases, nutrient deficiencies and

Export registrations Growers intending to export avocados must be registered with NZ Avocado as set out in the industry Export Marketing Strategy (EMS).

name - e.g. firstname.lastname. Unless you have changed your password recently, it will be the same.

Grower export registrations completed and paid by 14 August are $150 + GST. Registrations made after this date will be $300 + GST.

It is anticipated export registrations will be open on 3 July on the NZ Avocado website.

Prior to this, please check that you have your single sign on username and password. If you haven't changed this your username should be your first name, full stop, then your last

An Avoconnect will be sent out to growers notifying them when export registrations are open.

Newsroom

Spotted anything unusual?

Early reporting of unusual insect pests or plant symptoms helps to protect the avocado industry.

Calls to MPI’s pest and disease hotline 0800 80 99 66 are confidential and ensure industry pests are discovered early before they spread.

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Recommended reading

By Phillip West, , Research Officer, NZ Avocado Phillip.west@nzavocado.co.nz

Many growers are experiencing a light crop on their trees for the 2017-18 season and maybe asking themselves, and others, “WHY??”.

While we can’t say for sure that the wet winter and spring contributed to a poor set, it’s likely that these played a role.

We can say with a high level of confidence that avocado’s natural habit to bear irregularly likely played a big part in the poor fruit set. Coming from what has been a record setting production year, it’s not surprising that production is predicted to drop in the 2017-18 season. We experienced a similar drop in the 2015-16 season following our previous record season in 2014-15. That begs the questions of why is that pattern not surprising and what can we do about it?

why many growers are expecting reduced crops for the 2017-18 season and provides food for thought about what interventions can be made now and in spring when the likely heavy flowering manifests.

This issue’s recommended reading is an overview of irregular and alternate bearing by B. Nigel Wolstenholme from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It can be found online by searching for “Alternate bearing in avocado: an overview”.

April to September: Flower buds, pages 6-8 April to May: Quality of flush, pages 20-23

Newsroom

While the author is based in South Africa, the article references New Zealand and California to address the unique conditions each country faces in relation to irregular bearing.

The article provides a great introduction to the topic, looks at some of the causes of irregular bearing and some of the management interventions to reduce the severity of irregular bearing. It addresses the effect rootstocks may have and looks at the physiology of the plant growth cycle and how it is altered by irregular bearing. This is important because the disruption to the plant growth cycle contributes to the persistence of irregular bearing and an understanding of this can help with making decisions about interventions.

The article is easy to read while including some interesting bits of technical detail. Hopefully it goes someway to explain

Reading your trees Below are the key tree characteristics as set out in your Reading Your Trees Guide to assess at this time of year:

Once your trees have been assessed you will be ready to consider the suggested intervention strategies. At the bottom of each section in this guide there are a number of factors to consider to optimise your orchard management.

You will need to determine which is the best option for your own situation – if in doubt, seek specialist advice.

Download the Reading Your Trees workbook from the industry website under Resources > and select Orchard Management Guidelines from the drop down box. This workbook complements the Reading Your Trees guide and allows you to record your assessments.

Calendar of events

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NZAGA & AIC Board Meetings 22 June 24 August

NZAGA & AIC AGM 31 August, Whangarei Toll Stadium, 51 Okara Drive, Whangarei

HortNZ Conference 12-14 July ASB Arena, Mount Maunganui

NZ Avocado Grower Forum 31 August, Whangarei Toll Stadium, 51 Okara Drive, Whangarei Tauranga, date and time TBC

Avoscene June 2017

Industry news New Zealand’s Best Avocado Café announced Media release: 1.03.17

The hunt for the most popular avocado dish in New Zealand is over after thousands cast their votes.

New Zealand Avocado invited cafes and restaurants throughout the country to send in their best-selling avocado recipes to battle it out via a Facebook poll amongst their 22,000 diehard New Zealand Avocado Facebook fans.

The competition was tight, with nearly 2,000 avocado aficionados casting votes for 22 eateries from Auckland to Queenstown.

Ultimately it was Best Ugly Bagels’ recipe for T.A.B – Tomato, Avocado and fresh Basil with Al Brown Lemon and Fennel infused Olive Oil, served on a toasted sesame bagel, that came out on top, winning the cafe the title of ‘New Zealand's Best Avocado Cafe 2017’.

Jeremy Coombes of Best Ugly Bagels said this bagel consistently ranks in their top three sellers all year round.

“People are always raving about avocado on toast, but it’s even better on a freshly baked bagel! Add juicy sliced tomato on top and the combination of the tomato’s acidity and the creaminess of avocado - you really can’t beat it.”

Best Ugly Bagels is owned by celebrity chef Al Brown, who was delighted with the win.

The competition highlighted the versatility of avocados with mouth-watering recipes such as a scallop, bacon and avocado salad; an avocado, tomato, balsamic & watermelon salsa with crispy bacon; and a tapas-style avocado addiction platter.

New Zealand Avocado CEO Jen Scoular said the response to the competition had been fantastic.

“We were so impressed by the calibre of dishes sent in and love that we had representation from cafes nationwide.”

This season has produced the largest New Zealand avocado harvest on record. New Zealanders have already consumed more than 40 million avocados and the season’s not over yet.

Growth in demand for avocados in New Zealand has been

phenomenal, never before have we seen such a large volume be consumed so quickly in New Zealand. Scoular points to a huge collaborative effort between avocado wholesale marketers, supermarkets and NZ Avocado over the past few seasons as helping to make consumers aware of avocados amazing health benefits and versatility.

NZ Avocado Market Manager Bevan Jelley said NZ Avocado’s increased focus on social media is helping take engagement with everyday New Zealanders to new levels.

Newsroom

“We are thrilled to win this award and absolutely love using avocados here at Best Ugly Bagels.”

Best Ugly Bagel's owner Al Brown and kitchen manager Jamie Kennedy with their award for their T.A.B Bagel.

“New Zealand’s best avocado café competition was great because it benefited consumers, cafes and New Zealand’s avocado growers.”

Consumer demand for avocados continues to grow in both at-home use and the food service industry with avocado dishes, such as the famed avocado on toast, becoming increasingly popular on menus nationwide.

“Demand for amazing avocados is very high because avocados hit three sweet spots for consumers – they’re healthy, they are super versatile and they taste great,” explains Scoular.

“New research on the specific nutrient properties of avocados from New Zealand is expected to produce exciting results in the months ahead.”

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On the way to meet audacious goals - Growers rewarded with record New Zealand avocado season TAURANGA, 17 May 2017:

Newsroom

The New Zealand avocado industry has just reported its highest value ever with avocados sales reaching $198m, an increase of $64m on last season and $62m higher than the previous record of $136m in 2013-14.

Volume too was a record 7.7 million trays in the 2016-17 season - an 84% increase on last season.

The season saw significant increases in demand across all markets, with Australia remaining the industry’s largest market with an almost insatiable consumer demand.

Over 70% of New Zealand avocados are exported with the remaining avocados sold in New Zealand. New Zealanders too are finding more and tastier ways to use avocados, and starting to add them regularly to their shopping basket.

Jen Scoular, Chief Executive of NZ Avocado, says the industry’s Primary Growth Partnership programme: NZ Avocados Go Global, has provided a major boost to the sector.

“We are part of an industry that has gone from $70m in

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value in 2013 to an impressive $200m in 2017. The Go Global programme gave us the platform as an industry to develop a strategy with audacious goals of quadrupling sales and trebling productivity in ten years. That strategy, and Crown investment has been implemented and resulted in fantastic growth in value right across the supply chain” says Scoular.

“The independent review of the NZ Avocados Go Global programme said the five-year programme had made a major contribution to the New Zealand avocado industry,” says Scoular.

“The review noted that we’ve achieved a step change in the way the industry operates and it’s now a much more trusting, collaborative, cohesive, communicative and coordinated industry, with a correspondingly greater public profile.”

Alistair Petrie, Chair of the Avocado Exporter Council says that “We saw a superb increase in demand that was matched by excellent planning and supply from harvest through to delivery to customers in market. Versatility, health benefits and the amazing taste of avocados are the key drivers for that demand.”

Ashby Whitehead, Chair of NZ Avocado, says the industry is in the best state it has been for many years.

“With the huge increase in value from avocados and much higher visibility of the global opportunities, we are seeing strong growth throughout the industry. Demand for new trees has resulted in a near trebling of production at nurseries, large commercial investors in Northland are converting dairy farms to avocado orchards and smaller orchards are maximising the productivity of their orchards.

Growers will be very happy with their returns and are looking at further investment. It’s a very exciting time to be in the New Zealand avocado industry.”

Newsroom

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Ballance Farm Environment Awards 2017 Lynwood Avocado Nursery in Whangarei has won two awards at the Northland Ballance Farm Environment Awards evening held at Waitangi in late March.

and error to get right. The judges were also impressed by the work being done finding new cultivars best suited to New Zealand conditions.

The awards were established to recognise on-farm sustainability on all levels across the rural community.

Farmers have the responsibility to all New Zealanders to manage the natural resources under their guardianship in a way that is acceptable to the public. So to be considered, farms need to be sustainable financially, environmentally and be positively contributing to their communities.

The second award was the Waterforce Integrated Management Award for water management. Even after thirty years in the nursery, the hardest thing to get right is the watering. Lynwood measures all water inputs and also the conductivity of the leachate to optimise moisture and nutrient levels. The message Stephen wanted to pass on to all farms irrigating is that there are no short cuts to making good watering decisions.You really have to do the legwork and measure moisture levels right across different irrigation zones, and then decide how often and how much to apply.

Stephen and Samantha Wade, the founders of Lynwood, accepted the awards on behalf of the company. As Stephen pointed out in his acceptance speech, without his great staff all he would have is a bunch of empty sheds. He was delighted to be recognised for what amounted to his life’s work.

Newsroom

The first award was the Massey University Innovation Award, recognising the work that had gone into perfecting techniques of propagating clonal rootstock avocados. This is technically extremely challenging and took ten years of trial

Katikati Avo Expo Katikati avocado grower Sheryl Palmer is leading the campaign to make Katikati the official avocado capital of New Zealand.

Her idea for an AvoExpo to showcase businesses involved in the industry and to educate the public about the avocado’s taste, uses and nutrition came to life at the inaugural AvoExpo held in 2016. Back by popular demand, the second annual AvoExpo held in February within Katikati’s A&P show was an impressive display of the vibrancy and capability in the local avocado industry.

“We went through 15kg of guacamole and 300 avocado bliss balls, which were a huge hit,” says Linda Flegg of Kauripak, who was instrumental in the organisation of the AvoExpo.

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No farmer or orchardist ever thinks they are quite ready to enter the awards, but Stephen would encourage them to have a go.

“It’s great to have six judges come through your property and view with fresh and unbiased eyes. They give a report on improvements that can be made. After all, we’re all trying to get better.”

The main AvoExpo tent sponsored by avocado exporter, Avoco/Avanza, provided some welcome shelter from the heat of the day and those visiting were rewarded with woodchopping demonstrations, some delicious avocado themed nibbles, and avocado beer samples.

“Our avocado beer proved a real attraction, with almost 40 litres dispensed in 60ml sample cups.We also had the brewer, Stu Marshall, from Rocky Knob Brewing Co fielding lots of questions about it,” says Mike Swan from Southern Produce.

Local “avocado gurus”, Colin Partridge and Hugh Moore, fielded technical questions from visitors to the main tent.

“Several genuine enquiries were made by people from out of the region looking at getting into avocados or purchase existing orchards, proving that there is a real interest in the avocado industry,” says Mike.

There were 15 trade displays in the AvoExpo area covering all aspects of avocado orcharding as well as products such as avocado oil from Pole to Pole Produce.

“BeeNZ, the Hayes Family, displayed their exotic Manuka honey products, reflecting the necessity for bees in the avocado industry,” said grower and AvoExpo committee member Dianne Cheshire.

It was a scorching hot day and Just Avocados had just the thing to cool down the public – free avocado ice creams, produced by a local ice creamery in Waihi.

“People absolutely loved our avocado, coconut and lime ice cream which was made with fruit from our growers,” says Midge Munro of Just Avocados.

A new event for this year’s AvoExpo was a Tug-o-War competition which was taken out by the Waikato Wrestling club.

“We thought of including fun activities to get people along to the event and then hopefully educate them more about our industry and about the great taste and uses of avocados.

“It was a great day and we are looking forward to continuing to put this event on,” says Linda.

The Katikati A&P Society see the AvoExpo as a welcome addition to their day.

“Great to see that there is momentum going forward with the AvoExpo for 2018 and really neat to see it growing and other organisations getting on board,” said Dawn Mellow, trade site coordinator for the Katikati A&P show.

Thanks to the following businesses for supporting the 2017 AvoExpo - Action Sports Direct, Aongatete Coolstore, Avoco/ Avanza, Beezn Honey Ltd, Country Engineering, Crop Check Ltd, Ecomulch, Horticentre, Just Avocados Ltd, Lynwood Avocado Nursery, Meridian Access, PGG Wrightson, Pole to Pole Produce, R&R Tractors Ltd,Tanner Spraying,Western Bay Crop Monitoring Ltd.

Newsroom

Horticulture conference – 12-14 July, ASB Arena, Tauranga Horticulture is the primary industries’ quiet achiever – expanding, growing and meeting global consumer demands for healthy food. Growers play a valuable role in the New Zealand economy, both at a local level as producers, employers and food suppliers to New Zealanders, and with exports.

improve their business, hear inspirational and influential speakers, connect and socialise.

Head to http://www.confer.co.nz/hortnz2017 to find out more.

The Horticulture Conference is the place to be for industry to get together and share ideas, learn about innovation to

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Avocado news from the world Spain strengthens its position as an avocado producer The consumption of avocados in Europe continues to grow at an annual rate of around 15 percent and this places Spain, the only European producer of this subtropical fruit, in a position of strength and "with plenty of opportunities" in this market.

Eric Imbert, researcher of the Centre for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) of France, made this statement during his participation in Vélez-Málaga in a conference organised to analyze the importance of the agro-food sector to the Spanish economy.

Speaking to reporters, Imbert stressed that there is currently no other type of fruit developing as much as avocados, as it has new consumer markets that are currently "taking off", such as the United Kingdom, Germany or the Scandinavian countries, and others with a lot of potential for growth, as is the case of Italy.

According to this expert in fruit markets, the increase in consumption is accompanied by rising prices, because customers are willing to pay a little more for a product that is now "of better quality" because of all the work that has been done with the pre-ripening and the natural avocado.

He has insisted that, when in-season, which is in winter, the avocados grown in Spain play "an important role," compared to those from Mexico or Chile, and their price is always higher,

which is explained by the proximity of the production areas and the fact that they can be supplied at their best in terms of ripeness.

"Spanish avocados can be in France in just 24 hours, compared to the three weeks it takes the fruit to arrive from Chile or Peru, and this is an important advantage for Spain, which can harvest the fruit when it is at its best," he added.

The researcher believes that breaking the seasonality of the Hass variety, the most demanded by the European market, would be "difficult," and has opted to try to extend its campaign with earlier or later varieties.

As for the possibility of the US setting tariffs on Mexican avocados, as President Donald Trump announced, Imbert has pointed out that it would be dangerous, since Mexico exports one million tonnes to its northern neighbour and if only 10 percent of that production was redirected to Europe, the market would undergo severe changes.

However, he assured he doesn't think this will happen, since the US "wants those avocados, and replacing them with local production from California would involve a lot of labour that would be carried out by Mexican immigrants and Mr Trump would not like that at all."

Source: http://www.freshplaza.com/article/173285/Spainstrengthens-its-position-as-an-avocado-producer

US: Low avocado supply continues to push prices higher Newsroom

Supplies are continuing to be tight on imported avocados.

“From Mexico right now, we’re seeing decline in what’s been available to ship to the U.S.,” says Dan Acevedo of Newport Beach, Ca.-based Greenfruit Avocados. “And we’ll continue to see that decline until we start to harvest the new crop in mid to late June.”

Consumption continues to rise

For now, Acevedo notes that growers are trying to stretch the remainder of this crop through to the end of the season, which happens in that late June time period.That’s tough given the pressures on demand arising at this time of year. “There are a couple of dynamic shifts that add to consumption continuing to rise. One, in Mexico, Easter is a big holiday for their resort cities such as Acapulco, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo.They’re using what’s called U.S.-certified fruit for that domestic demand,” says Acevedo.Traditionally the resorts had used non-certified fruit but that supply isn’t there this

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year. “Additionally in the U.S., Cinco de Mayo has grown to be close in size to Superbowl. Compounded with a growth in global demand such as China, Japan, Canada, we’re going to have limited supply to the U.S.” Prices going up even more

All that pressure of course increasingly pushes prices on avocados upwards. “Prices continue to be high and right now it’s going to stay high and we don’t see a shift in that until the new crop comes in,” says Acevedo. He notes that the domestic crop from California that is also down in supply also plays a role in the spiking prices. “There’s less supply of California fruit during this period which traditionally picks up the slack from harvesting season in Mexico,” he says. “So we’re seeing really high prices and expecting them to continue to elevate higher than we’re seeing today.”

Source: http://www.freshplaza.com/article/173135/US-Lowimported-and-domestic-avocado-supply-continues-to-push-prices-higher

Recipe

Avocado, asparagus & mint rice paper rolls with almond satay sauce Recipe by Pretty Damn Good For You (blogger)

Ingredients: Almond Satay Sauce ¼ Cup Almond Butter ¼ Cup Brown Rice Vinegar 1 Tbsp Sesame Oil 2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil 3 Tbsp Tamari ½ Red Chilli, finely chopped Pinch of Sea Salt

Spring Rolls 10 Rice Paper Sheets 2 Large Kumara 2 Tbsp Olive Oil Salt and pepper 10 Asparagus 2 Avocados, cut into ½ cm thick slices 1 Cos Lettuce, leaves removed

1 Cup Mint Leaves, finely chopped Microgreens (whatever is available will be fine) 2 Limes 1 Tbsp Sesame Seeds Sea Salt + Pepper

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and bring a medium sized pot of water to the boil. Peel and cut the kumara into long chips, about 1cm x 1cm. Place the cut kumara into a mixing bowl and then add the olive oil and salt and pepper, and mix until well coated.

Place all of the sauce ingredients into a bowl and mix together until well combined.

Squeeze lime juice over the avocado and season with salt and pepper.

When the kumara is cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Drizzle a little of the sauce over and then fold the edges of the rice paper in over the filling and then roll up into a spring roll.

Nourish

Place the chips onto a baking tray and roast in the oven until just tender, approximately 20 minutes. Cut the asparagus spears in half and cook in the boiling water for approximately 1 minute, or until just tender. Immediately refresh under cold water and leave to one side.

To assemble the rolls, fill a large mixing bowl with warm water.

Place a clean, damp tea towel next to the bowl, and make sure you have all of the filling ingredients ready to go. One at a time, dip a rice paper sheet in the warm water for 30 seconds to soften and lay on the damp tea towel. Place a lettuce leaf across the top third of the sheet. Add in two to three kumara chips, then two slices of avocado and two asparagus halves.Scatter with microgreens and about ½Tbsp of mint.

Repeat until all of the fillings have been used.

Place the spring rolls onto a serving board.Scatter with sesame seeds and serve with the remainder of the dipping sauce and lime wedges.

Makes approximately 10.

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Team Activity The Board approved the budget to deliver the 2017-18 Business Plan, presented to the Board in March. Planning is very active right across the team as we prepare for the season ahead.

Jen Scoular – CEO

Bevan Jelley – Market Manager

“The Board tasks me with developing and implementing a strategy to optimise profitability while growing a strong industry. I lead a terrific team who collectively take on and deliver that challenge.”

“I work closely with our exporters and NZ marketers to optimise grower investment in market development, and manage promotional activity in our key markets.”

“We have just finalised a record industry value of $198m for the 2016-17 season, a fantastic reflection on an industry working together to drive grower profitability. A real cause for celebration.You would have read the media release on page 62 which went out just as this issue of Avoscene was going to print.

Edwina Aitchison – Executive Assistant

“I provide administrative support to Jen, our NZAGA & AIC Board members, industry stakeholder groups and the NZ Avocado team.”

“This month I have been involved with ensuring the Export Marketing Strategy and Quality Standards review processes are completed and communicated as required.The Recognised Product Group (RPG) approved changes are now up on the industry website for all stakeholders to read through. I have also been involved with the administration processes for replacement staff, as well as the preparation for the upcoming NZAGA Board elections and Annual General Meeting.”

Jay Bent – Business Manager

Nourish

“My role focuses on the finances of the industry body, while also managing the collection and dissemination of industry data to our stakeholders.”

“Over the past few months I have drafted the 2017-18 NZ Avocado feeding from crop estimate information provided by registered packers, supported by growers. This budget is set to be approved at the April NZ Avocado Board meeting and will finance the activities undertaken by our team, and used to support industry stakeholders across the supply chain.”

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“This month I have reviewed contestable promotions fund reports from exporters and New Zealand marketers to ensure that project objectives were achieved. This season 10 contestable fund projects were undertaken across six markets. Reports must be approved by the contestable fund panel before exporters are reimbursed for part of the cost of the approved activities.”

Anna Livingston – Market Manager

“I provide support with promotional activities across our export markets and the NZ market with a focus on digital marketing” “I’ve been working on the sponsorship for six avocado recipes on the new Healthy Food Guide Television series on TV from May. The featured avocado recipes focus on the varied ways avocados can be eaten combined with nutritional information. The content is also available for NZ Avocado to use on our website and social media.”

Brad Siebert – Biosecurity & Programme Manager

“I manage the day-to-day of our ‘Go Global’ Primary Growth Partnership programme, and ensure the industry is protected by a well considered biosecurity plan.”

“This month I have been working with Northland Councils, HortNZ and growers to ensure the future needs of the industry are provided for in upcoming resource management plans. Avocado nurseries are well into the grafting period and I have supported this process through the review of the Industry’s High Health Scheme and managing access to the industry gene blocks. The PGP annual plan has now incorporated recommendations for the external PGP review been finalised for the year ahead.”

Glenys Parton – Industry Systems Manager

“I manage the industry quality and export systems, including AvoGreen, and currently facilitate rot research and agrichemical efficacy assessment.”

“This month the Quality Standards review has been taking place. This process considers submissions to changes to the Quality Manual proposed by stakeholders, gathers any additional information and makes decisions on acceptance, or not, of the submissions. The Quality Standards Consultative Group is made up of nominated representatives of Growers, Packers and Exporters and can second expertise on given areas where required. Updates and discussion around this process can be found on the website.”

Marisa Till – Research Manager

“My main focus is to facilitate the NZ Avocado research programme, ensuring effective research meets growers’ needs for the benefit of the whole industry.”

“It has been a busy time of year for the research team. We had amazing attendance at our April field days with some great discussion. Work on the AGMARDT funded project: “Validation of the rot prediction tool” is underway with the first round of sampling being completed.

Our Sustainable Farming Fund: “Mating disruption for leafroller in avocados” project with Plant & Food Research has successfully reached our second milestone and has been reported to the funding agencies.”

Phillip West – Research Officer

Jodi Senior – Communications Manager

“I am responsible for Avoscene, Avoconnect and other stakeholder and corporate communications activities/events. I manage PR and social media in the NZ Market.”

“While managing the creation of Avoscene, I have been supporting the research team with our recent field days, organising our Industry days and managing our social media platforms.We had a great turnout at our recent Tauranga industry day with various industry players and service providers keen to hear about our exciting industry.

I enjoyed meeting some of you at our recent field days and hope to meet more of you at our AGM and Grower Forum in August.”

Jo Nunn – Administration Assistant

“As well as my usual administration tasks, I have been spending a lot of my time registering growers and supporting the organisation of the recent Northland and Bay of Plenty field days. I have also been processing PPIN applications and non-propagation agreements.”

“Field days in both Northland and the Bay of Plenty have been a great opportunity to talk with growers and share some of our latest research. I had the pleasure of presenting our latest pruning trial results. It was great to see and hear the interest in pruning, going into what is likely going to be a heavy flowering spring. Engagement and data collection associated with the tree decline and canopy management working groups has also been a big focus. Keep an eye out for future publications that will continue to share these results.”

Logan Whenuaroa – Research Associate

“As the newest member of our team, I am excited to be a part of supporting the implementation of the research programme”

Nourish

“I am your first point of call if you stop by or call our office, and I assist the team with any administration tasks.”

“I spend a fair amount of my time working with growers on our orchard trials, while managing projects within our research programme, analysing data and helping communicate results to growers.”

“Over the last few months I have helped facilitate field days and data collection for tree decline and new cultivar projects. The information collected and communication with growers is helping shape the direction of the NZ Avocado research teams work so we can provide more informed industry research.”

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Out & About

Out and about

NZ Avocado CEO Jen Scoular and NZAGA & AIC Chair Ashby Whitehead with King Avocado growers Alistair and Claudia on a recent trip to Northland.

A record number of growers attended the NZ Avocado and Just Avocados joint field day held earlier in April at Andrew and Jo Darling’s orchard.

High school students looking at kiwifruit varieties at Plant & Food Research as part of the Cultivate Your Career Programme.

Phillip West, NZ Avocado's Research Officer, presenting Pruning to Balance research results at the NZ Avocado and Trevelyans field day held earlier in April on Anna MacDougall, Monique Lauri and Fiona Flowerday's Te Puke orchard..

The team at Golden Mile Fruit Packers before and after they took part in Shave for a Cure. They encourage other packhouses and industry stakeholders to get involved next year! They managed to raise $3800 and would like to thank their supporters, many of whom were from their grower group. Well done team!

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Avoscene June 2017

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