Passionfruit growers must do a top job
Passionfruit growers can do well if they can maintain healthy plants, achieve good packouts and the season?s prices are good. But they will only continue to make a profit if they do a top-line job year after year.
That is the view of Graeme Blackford of Katikati, an executive member of the Passionfruit Growers Association.
This year?s opening season prices in late January were, as usual, high at $9 a kilogram, but they soon dropped to $8.50 and, early in February, as volumes increased, plummeted to $4 a kilo. ?If growers added up their costs, including their labour and their investment inland, I don?t think they would be making any money at $4,? Graham said. Last season the return dropped to a disastrous $2.50 a kilo in mid-season.
?It wasn?t worth while harvesting the crop,? he said. Harvesting involves walking along every row twice a day on sunny days picking up fruit and clipping their stems from late January to May. Not an enjoyable chore by anyone?s standards but necessary to prevent the fruit on the ground getting sunburnt and blistered.
Passionfruit are subject to viral, bacterial and fungal diseases. Growers can expect to lose 10 per cent of their vines every year. Usually the vegetation dies off within days and nothing can be done about it. Sometimes an entire orchard can die almost overnight. The vines must be regularly sprayed with copper, maintaining a cover throughout the year.
Like harvesting, packing is manual for all but the bigger growers. The fruit has to be wiped or dipped in acid to remove the copper spray residue. The utmost care must be taken to avoid damaging the skin which marks very easily.
Passionfruit can be grown only in frost-free areas. One or two frosts can wipe out an entire planting. Graham says vine management has hardly changed over recent years.
At a strategic planning meeting held last year key strategic research goals were set as improving plant longevity through improved pest and disease control and research into local market growth potential. However, with the compulsory 1.25 per cent levy income bringing in only between $15,000 and $20,000, the sum available for research is limited and no funds have been set aside for research this year. About one-third of income will be spent on promotion. Administration, organisation of field days and communication take up a large part of the rest.
The executive believes that improving communication ?within the industry is critical, particularly between grower and exporter and vice versa.
The association executive this year aims to collate a starter pack for new growers including advice on vine establishment and management and information on marketing. It hopes to establish an information library, improve communication and achieve a higher profile for the fruit using promotional techniques. Literature searches of New Zealand and overseas research have already resulted in booklets summarising knowledge on nutrition and pest and disease control being published.
With so many hazards facing the passionfruit grower the question must be asked, ?Why would anyone want to get into passionfruit production??
Graham says real estate agents often suggest it as a suitable crop for land buyers because it is relatively cheap to establish and the vines come into production quickly. They don?t mention that adding even a few hectares to the national crop can tip over the supply and demand balance and lead to disaster for everyone involved.
They also don?t mention there are usually about 100 commercial passionfruit growers in New Zealand and the numbers stay constant although the personnel is always changing as disillusioned or exhausted growers exit the industry. Many growers plant a small block and attempt to manage it on a part-time basis but the routine of spraying and harvesting is so demanding this is a tough call.
More than half the crop is exported, 770 tonnes out of the total 1300 tonnes sold in the 1997 season. This fruit must be near-perfect in appearance. Returns are generally higher at $17 to $27 for a 2.2kg pack than for local market fruit. Because passionfruit are a low-weight, high-value product high airfreight costs are justified. The US is the main market.
Fruit not suitable for either the export or local markets can be sold for processing, returning only a dollar a kilo. However, this market means that all fruit harvested can be sold.
Graham has an average planting of 0.5 ha of passionfruit, plus 3ha of kiwifruit. In 1996 he was one of the first growers to graft a block of Hayward kiwifruit over to Chinensis 16A, now called Zespri Gold. He has such faith in the new kiwifruit variety that he has since grafted his entire kiwifruit planting to it. His passionfruit are providing a useful cash flow while the newly-grafted kiwifruit vines return to production. Last year?s mild winter means that the kiwifruit set is light and varied throughout the blocks with up to 500 fruit only on vines in the coldest part of the orchard. He is finding that controlling Zespri Gold?s rampant summer growth a real challenge, coinciding as it does with the passionfruit harvest.
When Graham bought the orchard in (when?) he was managing the local branch of the Bank of New Zealand. He employed contractors for some tasks and tried to do much of the work himself. Since he was made redundant he has been working on the orchard full-time but still finds it difficult to keep up with the work.
The passionfruit were already planted, either on fences or T-bars. The T-bars are preferable in that the fruit is less likely to suffer wind rub. If he were to start again he would make the extra investment into A-frame structures which not only offer better protection to the fruit but also shelter fallen fruit from the sun so that frequent harvesting is not so critical.
Article by Rosalie Smith
Reprinted from "The Orchardist" March 1999
