Rapid increases in volumes of Italian gold kiwifruit and the development of large areas of new orchards, could see Italy become a significant threat to New Zealand’s kiwifruit industry, warns Nathan Balasingham of Indigo Ltd who recently visited Italy.

Italian kiwifruit vines are not pruned in summer, instead the canopy is kept dense to protect fruit from the sun.


Soreli fruit
Nathan says the gold variety Soreli is producing very high yields of good sized fruit and it appears growers of all varieties have over-come issues with Psa-V.

Zespri SunGold (G3) which is grown under contract to Zespri, is performing well and growers are subjected to the same high standards of fruit quality and taste as New Zealand growers says Nathan.

“New Zealand will remain competitive provided we continue improving the quality and productivity. We will need to spend even more on research and development.”

However, increasing volumes of all varieties has seen Italian post-harvest and export companies delaying making commitments to take growers’ fruit and Nathan believes this may mean lower returns for Italian orchardists.

“The beauty of what we have in New Zealand with Zespri’s single desk structure means growers don’t face that sort of problem and are able to manage their business effectively.”

This machine picks up kiwifruit bins, drops them off to be filled, picks up the filled bins and loads them on to trucks on Italian kiwifruit orchards.

Trial orchards
Nathan went to Italy to assess trails of Indigo products Agrizest and Biozest on Hayward, Hongyang, G3, Soreli and Top Gold (Y356) orchards.

“Latina was the area hardest hit by Psa and for the last four years I have been following progress on orchards using Agrizest. One orchard had Psa in 80 per cent of vines with exudates but there is no sign of it this year.”