We’ve made a good start on the orchard drainage project, visiting sites in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Nelson.

Many thanks to Illawarra Orchard, T&G Global, MrApple, Bostocks NZ, KONO Horticulture and Waimea West for your active involvement.

The sites confirm the need to address drainage and the consequent track rutting and associated problems in each of the regions. We have begun our survey of sites and regions, aiming to get some objective assessment of the amount and severity of problems, where they most occur and what solutions may be applied. We already see there will not be a one-fix-for-all!

The Gisborne site that initiated the project looks better than it did after harvest 2017. But the issues remain, and we’ll be surveying and planning how to reshape inter-rows to allow surface drainage.

In Motueka, our preliminary site visit saw the same problems and similar severity. The solution will not be the same, as the land contour is very different and the are no clear exit points for water once it does leave the tree blocks.

The orchard team has been applying a range of drainage remedies with varying success.

We visited a number of Hawke’s Bay sites on different soil types. One block in Twyford is being replanted, and pre-plant levelling was carried out. We are looking to trial inter-row levelling in established blocks, with surface water moved to tiles installed at the end of rows.