The New Zealand government has co-invested in a new five-year program with the country’s kiwifruit industry to help growers produce higher yields of premium fruit, with less water, fewer nutrients and reduced environmental impact.
Zespri says the project, called Optimizing Kiwifruit Land Use — More from Less, is co-produced by the New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc. and Zespri and is co-funded through New Zealand’s Primary Sector Growth Fund, which will contribute $19.14 million toward the project. The kiwifruit industry, including Zespri, will contribute an additional $28.73 million in combined cash and in-kind investment.
Zespri says the program will operate across all New Zealand’s kiwifruit growing regions and varieties to create more value from existing orchards with on-orchard innovation, advanced decision-support tools and applied science.
The program will focus on three areas:
- More orchard productivity through research and implementation to improve fruit quality and budbreak, enhance vine management and production techniques, develop alternative pest and disease controls and improve decision-support tools.
- More efficient use of resources by using irrigation modeling and decision-support tools to deliver exactly the water and nutrients each vine needs.
- Less environmental impact through exploring carbon sequestration or removals including biochar and other tools that support the program’s broader environmental outcomes.
The program will be overseen by an independently chaired Project Governance Group, with representation from the Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc. and Zespri.
Zespri CEO Jason Te Brake says this program presents a great opportunity for the country’s kiwifruit growers to produce great yields, though they are working within constraints of only so much land suitable for production and environmental expectations.
“Kiwifruit has a relatively low environmental impact, and we’re committed to always looking at ways we can do better,” Te Brake says. “The opportunity for us is in getting more from the orchards growing now through more precise growing practices, better decision-making tools and continuing to bring new science into our orchards to improve production as well as delivering new varieties which grow at higher yields in a wider variety of locations.”
Te Brake says this program will also help strengthen the value of New Zealand’s kiwifruit exports, noting that the country exports to more than 50 markets around the world.
“We expect to more than double our exports over the next 10 years through releasing new cultivars, developing more orchards and, importantly, maximizing productivity on existing orchards and doing this in a way which is good for people, communities and the environment,” he says. “Our industry has a strong history of being forward-looking, innovative and collaborative, and co-investment of this kind helps bring innovation to growers much faster than we could on our own.”
