2017 Apple harvest going sweet!
Its all go picking apples in Hawkes Bay and Nelson with excellent quality fruit flowing through the packhouses. Some growers have recorded amazing packout rates with certain varieties packing out at 97 % into a box for export. Harvest time is always a challenge with weather playing a major role in the whole operation. Maintaining good pickers is also important and in recent years the New Zealand Governments RSE scheme has helped relieve some pressure with numbers of workers coming in from the South Pacific Islands. New Zealand growers seem to be able to grow high quality fruit to a good size and still maintain excellent tonnage per hectare. While it has been the industry standard to keep trees down in size, more recent trends are to grow them taller and maximise yield per hectare. Some new developments are being planted with 4.5m poles! This has lead to more and more growers using Hydralada Elevating Work Platforms for harvest which significantly increases picker safety and output. Sales of new and second hand Hydralada platforms are strong with the factoryin full swing producing new machines for markets all over the world. Check out the Hydralada website www.hydralada.com