A challenging growing season has had an impact on fruit size for a South Canterbury pip and stonefruit orchard but it expects to harvest all of its apple varieties by late May.

Waipopo Orchards, a 80 hectare orchard in Seadown, grows a variety of apples for the export markets including Honeycrisp to North America, Royal Gala to Asia and Europe, Red Delicious to Asia and Braeburn to Europe.

The man in charge of overseeing operations, orchard manager Andrew Forward, says Honeycrisp apples attract a price premium of up to four times over other varieties in the United States of America.

"All of our apples are destined for the export markets," Forward said. Forward said the Waipopo harvest should be completed by late May and the season has kept farm employees busy with several challenges.

"The harvest is progressing well, but this season has been challenging due to a very wet spring [November-December] and cool weather which is affecting final fruit size," Forward said.

"Fruit size is down compared to last season due to poor weather conditions during the spring."

Despite those challenges, it has been a reasonable season to date. "We expect to harvest all our apple varieties, approximately 70 tonnes of apples per hectare on average depending on variety."

He said hail damage has not been a problem this season but there had been too much rain in the spring, and "a little too dry over the past two months". "We use hail drape nets over our Honeycrisp apples to prevent hail and bird damage."?

The Seadown operation includes an export-accredited packhouse which mainly supplies the US market in their off-season.

Source:  stuff.co.nz