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Champagne crop for Mid Canterbury farmers. PAGE 17
Weevil the answer to tackling horsetail? PAGE 30
$30 million to be invested in building 10 kiwifruit orchards on Maori land in the Bay of Plenty and Gisborne. PAGE 22
TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS MAY 2, 2017: ISSUE 629
www.ruralnews.co.nz
Rains get river flowing NIGEL MALTHUS
ENVIRONMENT CANTERBURY reports that the Selwyn River is flowing across the plains for the first time in years, recharged by both ex-cyclone Debbie in early April and ex-cyclone Cook a week later. ECan chief scientist Dr Tim Davie says that with Debbie the river had recorded 75 cumecs at Whitecliffs, where the headwaters leave the foothills and meet the plains.
“That’s a big flood. That’s more than the Waimakariri flows at for most of the year. But it wasn’t enough to get it all the way across the plains.” He says it then took a lot more rain for the gravel river bed to be full and the river to flow right across the plains. The flow at Coes Ford peaked at about 12 cumecs late on Easter Saturday and was still at about 3 cumecs the following Tuesday. Davie says that while the Selwyn might still dry up
higher up the plains, he now expects it to reconnect regularly with normal winter rain. “Now that it’s full it will reconnect much easier.” In the lower reaches, from about 1km upstream of Chamberlains Ford, the river normally recharges from groundwater and doesn’t usually dry out completely. Chamberlains Ford dried out this summer and Davie says that was very unusual – not known at all in modern records, although believed to have last hap-
pened in the 1930s. Davie says the biggest driving factor in the low flows had been the drought. Spring rain helped grass growth but was not enough to recharge the groundwater which fed the lower reaches. “There is a factor from irrigation, absolutely. But it’s nowhere near as big as the impact of three dry winters.” @rural_news facebook.com/ruralnews
Still ploughing along Sixty-two years ago Jim Brooker won the first New Zealand ploughing championships and in doing so won himself a trip to the world ploughing championships in Oxford in the UK. This year the sprightly 85-year-old was at it again leading the grand parade to the ploughing plots at the recent NZ ploughing championships held on Seaton’s farm, near Kirwee, Canterbury. Amazingly Brooker was driving the same tractor and plough he drove when he won the national competition as a young lad in 1956. He says his prize included a round-the-world air ticket that allowed him to stop in Canada to see fellow competitors on his way to the world championship in the UK. For 30 years Brooker was president of the Courtenay-Paparua Ploughing association and today he is the patron. - More on the ploughing on page 15
KIWIFRUIT HITS THE MARKET PAM TIPA pamelat@ruralnews.co.nz
THE 2017 New Zealand kiwifruit season is underway with continued growth in SunGold volumes as more vines reach full maturity. Green volumes are down on last year’s record crop due to weather, says Zespri chief operating officer Simon Limmer. “It’s the second-largest crop in our history and fruit is sizing well on the vines heading into harvest, with good taste levels. The NZ kiwifruit industry is [approaching]... the anniversary of 20 years of delivering premium fruit in a Zespri box around the world,” says Limmer. “Over the long-term, our strong volume growth here in NZ and offshore will continue as SunGold volumes increase to meet consumer demand around the world.” The first of the 46 reefer vessels (refrigerated charter ships) from New Zealand left for China in late March in a break with tradition: for many years the first ships went to Japan. This marks the increasing importance of the China market; China and Japan are now Zespri’s two largest markets. In addition to the reefer vessels, about 14,000 containers will be shipped in the 2017 season.
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