PASSION FOR A FRUIT
Thoughts of passionfruit set most people's taste buds afire. Older New Zealanders would never consider topping national icon pavlova with kiwifruit unless the traditional passionfruit was unavailable.
Whoever named the old Paradise Tart got it right -- that combination of passionfruit and coconut hit the spot back in the 1940s and seemed like paradise come true (and for those who thought the recipe had been lost forever, it is on page XX).
Passiflora edulis is a South American native, coming from an area from southern Brazil through Paraguay to northern Argentina. It was growing in Queensland coastal regions before 1900 and has been cultivated in New Zealand since the 1920s, at first in Northland but now mostly established in Bay of Plenty. About 240 tonnes are produced annually in New Zealand by only 100 commercial growers, 75% of them in the Bay of Plenty. It is a subtropical fruit that prefers a frost-free climate, so the temperate Bay of Plenty suits it perfectly. Passionfruit can handle light frosts only, and those areas must have shelter belts already established before planting, as well as frost protection. Young plants should be protected with newspaper, bracken or frost cloth if frosts are expected. Wind damage can also scar skins, jeopardising export, and the woodiness virus also affects skins: it makes them dry and thick-skinned.
Passionfruit begins producing fruit 18 months after planting, but Bay of Plenty grower Tony Dimmock of Athenree, 10km from Katikati, warns lifestyle weekend farmers to think long and hard before taking it on.
Growing it is a labour intensive job, he says. "It's not a weekend job. It cannot be, unlike other crops that you pick. "You pick these off the ground, so you haven't got any say in when that happens each day. What happens is that they drop and you have to be there seven days a week to do something with them.
"The picking season usually starts about the beginning of February and probably goes through to April or May, seven days a week. "So if you don't do something with the crop one day, if you have to have a break, you have double to catch up with the next day. "Every day, rain, hail or shine, Tony and wife Linda head into the orchard with buckets and clippers. It's not just a case of carrying one bucket each when picking, either. They each have to carry two, one for export and one for the local market, so they grade as they collect. They place each fruit in the bucket, clipping off the stalk and leaving it on the ground.
This year, two crop seasons clashed ?- they also grow tamarillos.
Says Tony: "There seems to be too much tamarillo crop around and all export has stopped at present because the American market has been flooded.
"We have done okay out of both crops this year because we were early. We started passionfruit in the middle of January and the tamarillos began in the middle of March. They crossed over. Most of the passionfruit had finished when the tamarillos started.
"We got the premium prices by being early. We earned huge prices for the winter crop."
The Dimmocks sold their 280-cow dairy herd at Waihi in 1978 to go into kiwifruit growing at Katikati, then bought a second orchard block. When the industry crashed they sold one orchard and their home, renting a flat in a kiwifruit packing house, then in 1993 sold their other block. They bounced back the same year, buying 2ha because the house site had a sensational view of the entrance to Tauranga Harbour.
In 1995 they planted 0.35ha of passionfruit, as well as some tamarillos. Their first crop, in 1997, of 19.75 tonnes a hectare produced $30,000 and they had a 50% export packout. They leased a further block and planted passionfruit, and have leased another, which they planted in tamarillos.
They now own 1 1/2ha at home comprising 450 passionfruit vines and 100 golden tamarillos, and lease another 2 1/2ha of tamarillos around the region. Bulk growing for commerce can be a frustrating career choice. One passionfruit vine on an old shed at home can thrive for years, but an orchard situation is quite different. Bulk growing means vulnerability to pests and diseases, including fungal varieties, especially in February?s humidity. It is also vulnerable to salt spray, which burns leaves and fruit.
"You have got to have the absolutely right conditions to grow passionfruit," says Tony. "You can't grow them anywhere. We spray copper every month but in summer it?s every fortnight, then down to 10 days when fungal conditions exist." As for salt damage, "if you get an easterly wind without rain that's when you get the damage. Rain washes the salt off. A windy spray without rain took all the crop one year".
Once they have collected the fruit from each row the Dimmocks take the buckets back to the shed so the crop can be polished and sized over the grader. Says Linda: "We work together, both picking up the fruit and in the shed. Tony puts the passionfruit through the polisher one by one, then they go on a conveyor belt and on to the grader, which sizes them as well. "The grader is covered in sheepskin because passionfruit mark so easily. They then drop into canvas bins, where I then wipe each fruit and check for defects before putting them in the trays to be exported."
They also have a local market box holding 5kg in which Linda puts reject fruit too marked for export, and a 5kg plastic bag for pulp. Nothing is wasted. "Every passionfruit has got to be treated like an egg because they scratch so easily. You have to be so gentle with them," says Tony.
A point which makes growing the fruit commercially attractive to lifestylers is that it requires little land: the average orchard needs only 0.4ha, the support structures are not expensive and tube-grown seedlings cost around 50c each, or next to nothing if grown from seeds. Tony recommends new growers should begin small, with only 200 plants -- "but you are getting tonnes and tonnes off that". The couple grows the fruit on 2m high A-frames, spaced so the tractor can mow beneath them and to avoid further sunburn when collecting fruit.
With A-frame structures they pick up every morning, once a day only, whereas with fence or T-bar frames they would need to pick up more often. Both train and prune the vines. The first year they have to be trained along wires and this is just about a full-time job, says Tony, as they can go rampant.
The main leader has to be trained along the wires. There are four wires on each side of the structure and the vines have to be trained along these.
The couple aims to export about 75% of their crop, mostly to the US, but "it can vary a hang of a lot because of climatic conditions. Wind and rain can really wreck it", says Tony. "This season we did 1000 trays for export and 4.5 tonnes for the local market. That was a bad year. A lot of it dropped on the ground with fungal diseases because of all the rain in spring and early summer. "We don't get frosts here, but a lot of people last winter were pretty well wiped out. There are a number of new growers each year, and there are a number exiting each year, so there is a high turnover of new growers.
"One of the problems is making the new growers aware of the allowable sprays. There are no registered insecticides for exported passionfruit, so it is a worry that new growers could put on the wrong spray. If that's detected at the other end... "Before you can export passionfruit now you have got to do a spray safe course. To be able to get fruit into the supermarkets you have to be an approved supplier. You have to sit a course and you have to be audited by MAF Qual." The Dimmocks are accredited growers.
When working on tamarillos they usually take Fridays off to catch up on book work and the many other jobs that bank up. "It seems the older you get the busier you are," says Linda. Tamarillos fruit until the end of August or early September, "but you don't have to pick them every day, and you pick them off the tree". The Dimmocks enjoy growing passionfruit but admit they are getting older and that it is getting harder to pick them up off the ground. Tony reckons it is a young person's game: "You can't be too old for this job. You've got to be pretty fit for passionfruit growing because of all the bending. It's all manual."
Linda says passionfruit are low in sodium, are an excellent source of vitamin C and that the edible seeds are rich in iron. One medium fruit contains around 15 calories. She cooks mainly usual meals, with potatoes nearly every night. "But we do have the odd Chinese, or wok cooking. Tony loves spicy meals and I don't mind them occasionally. I also love roasts, but Tony is not fussed. "Usually when the family (three adult children, partners and granddaughter) comes I would cook a roast. We both adore seafood, crayfish especially, but of course we don't have that very often. "I do make a lovely mussel meal -- I think it's called Thai Curried Mussels. We also have fish quite a lot. We have a friend down at Waihi Beach who often gives us a fish for dinner. "Linda also makes "a big pot of old-fashioned soup, with either bacon hocks or shin on the bone, and all the vegetables I can get. It?s lovely on those cold winter days".
Tony's cooking stops at barbecues, which Linda says he's very good at. "For a treat I will buy some tiger prawns, which he wraps in tin foil after spreading garlic butter over them, and cooks them on the barbie. Delicious!"
Both love passionfruit and have them every morning for breakfast, cut in half and scooped out with a spoon. Linda bakes once a week and usually includes passionfruit in it, mainly icing. They don't have dessert every night, perhaps just once or twice a week. Both like milk puddings or a chocolate self-saucing pudding. Linda recently made a delicious tamarillo and apple dessert which can also be eaten as cake for afternoon tea.
As with other rural women tired after a day's hard work, Linda is faced with the problem of having to cook after being in the shed each day. "But I seem to get there. Sometimes we just have bacon and eggs, but there is nothing wrong with that, is there?" Not at all.
Her favourite passionfruit recipe is pavlova -- with a passionfruit topping, naturally -- and her other is lemon slice.
Article by Glenda Leader
Reprinted from "Lifestyle Farmer" Aug/Sept 2002
