New Zealand apple industry keen to collaborate with state The New Zealand apple industry is keen for collaboration with the hill state both at the level of growers and institutions to bring about qualitative and quantitative improvement in the indigenous fruit. “The average production in New Zealand is 56 tonne per hectare whereas it is 8 to 9 tonne per hectare in Himachal. Unlike Himachal, apple is grown on flat land in our country but the yield could be easily increased to 20 to 30 tonne per hectare,” said Gary Jones, leader of the team from Pipfruit, the apex body of growers, packers, marketers representing the industry of New Zealand, currently visiting the apple growing areas of the state. The average age of orchards in Himachal is over 40 years and re-plantation with high yielding varieties and making them compact can help in boosting the production. Besides hill topography, lack of irrigation facility is also a major constraint. Much is required to be done on the disease management front to improve the quality and increase production. He said it was his fourth visit to the state and on every visit, he found improvement in the quality of fruit, but there was a lot more to be done. “The New Zealand apple industry will not only help growers in rejuvenation of orchards and disease management but also in marketing the fruit, particularly exports. There are just 390 apple growers in New Zealand and they exported over 300,000 tonne of fruit to over 75 countries,” he said. He said an advantage was that the marketing season of New Zealand was over by June and all the consignments were shipped by July and the harvesting in Himachal commenced thereafter. As such there was no overlapping or clash and New Zealand could help the state in exports, he added. The Pipfruit was also keen to have collaboration with the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The team would hold meeting with officials in Shimla after completing field visits. All the growers and those involved in marketing of apple were members of the organisation which carried out all the responsibilities relating to apple industry right from research, development of new varieties, extension services to packaging and marketing. It organised seminars, workshops and conferences for education of members. (Curtsy The Tribune)
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 17:54:23 +0000
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