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every second year with non-cropping vines trained only to grow
replacement canes. Small strip males grafted into female leaders
run across the block in every bay. Historical yields on the orchard
were in the 14 to 18,000 te/ha range.
HortResearch set up some ‘High Production’(HP) plots in Block F
of this orchard to assess whether the standard orchard management
could be further improved. The HP treatment consisted of:
1. Supplemental artifi cial pollination
2. Extenday® refl ective ground covers erected both vertically
(in this case, every third row) and horizontally on the
ground.
3. In addition less NAA-gel pruning was applied, and instead
large fruiting shoots were either zero-leaf pruned or left
intact.
ORCHARD MANAGEMENT
Packed trays/ha 1 Count size DM 2 TZG 2 Estimated OGR 3 ($/ha)
Control 15,579 30.4 17.4 0.48 68,100
High Production 17,417 29.4 18.1 0.61 85,200
Signifi cance NS NS * *
Table 1. Yield, dry matter(DM) and Orchard gate Return(OGR) from Hyland’s Hort16A trial site
1. Estimated from plot samples and packhouse reject data
2. Dry matter data based on April 18th samples.
3. Estimated using ZESPRI OGR calculator as at Dec2007. Excludes allowances for fruit loss & KiwiStart and STP payments. Uses post-harvest charges of $3.89/te
Signifi cance: NS =not signifi cant * =Signifi cance at P>0.05
All vines in Control and HP plots in the trial block were treated the
same for fertilizer inputs, Benefi t GOLD applications (three applied)
and trunk girdling (one girdle in February). Bird damage in spring
meant there was no need to thin to adjust crop load. A small
number of fruitlets were removed from the ends of very thin canes
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where fruit would not have made export grade for blemish or size
reasons. Differences in vine management between the HP and
Control vines were:
1. Refl ective Ground Covers: HP vines had Extenday® refl ective
fabric installed on 11 October 2006 as a complete ground cover
(88 per cent of the surface) beneath the 20 vines (Figure 3).
Extenday® was also installed as an 1.25 m vertical fence beneath
the leader of every vine in the fi rst and last rows of each block on
12 December 2006. Extenday® New Zealand Ltd provided the
refl ective fabric and attachment cords and hooks at no cost to
the project. Refl ective materials were left in place until harvest.
2. Supplemental Pollination. The HP vines were artifi cially pollinated
with three wet pollen applications during fl owering (courtesy of
PollenPlus®).
3. Canopy Management. Very little NAA-gel was applied to the HP
vines while a relatively low level of gel use was used in the
Control vines. In the HP vines greater use was made of shoot
removal or zero-leaf pruning. All vines generally had relatively
low vigour compared with industry norms due to the high crop
load and extended leaders and canopy area (64m 2 ) with the
ARC system.
NZ KIWIFRUIT JOURNAL JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2008
21