Have you seen our Lab in action yet?

Agfirst Laboratory Tour - Reminder

Agfirst would like to invite you see our maturity testing lab in action on: Tuesday 13th April 2010

Agfirst Staff will be taking groups through the Laboratory starting at 4.15pm, 5.15pm and 7.15pm to give you a better understanding of the whole process. If you've been curious about the whole testing process and what happens to your maturity clearance sample as it goes through the process and would like to see what goes on in our Laboratory, then this is your opportunity!

If you are interested in coming along then please RSVP to Lisa butler lisa@agfirstbop.co.nz or 07 549 1044 and let her know which time suits you on the 13th April 2010. More visits may be available at later dates.
 

From Ian's Desk - 2010 season so far!!!

I have seen a lot of KiwiStart seasons and everyone of them is different and produces surprises, as 2010 has already proved. We have already been delivered with some unexpected outcomes and it is still early days for the 2010 season.

In 2009 we had a lot of early clearances with fruit passing the KiwiStart criteria at a very young age. I commented to many growers and packhouses at the time, that I doubt we will see this again for a number of seasons. The 2010 season clearances occurred even earlier than 2009!! I will resist making any similar comments in future.

It would appear the dry conditions in combination with a period of cool nights and warm days contributed to this phenomenon with fruit meeting the KiwiStart criteria early in their life. A combination of the dry conditions and coolish nights has also produced a small size profile which was not expected based on the predictions. Given some good rain then we still expect to see some big fruit to come, subject to the rain coming to anything. Decent rain now will be worth millions to the industry so let’s hope it arrives and we get some overnight rain that doesn’t disrupt the harvest.

This year so far has been different in that Gisborne and Hawkes Bay are often early, but this season they have had more summer rain than usual and seed colour development was slower than usual. The Bay of Plenty Islands and Coastal Katikati orchards which were drier than usual actually achieved black seeds earlier than usual.

The early season dry matter levels are in general higher for the equivalent time in the last few seasons, so it will now be interesting to see whether dry matter ends up being higher for the whole season.

IAN STEVENS - MANAGING DIRECTOR
 

Key Elements of Sample Collection Methodology

The objective is to collect fruit in a grid pattern across the whole maturity area. This is achieved by varying the gap interval that fruit is collected from based on the size of the maturity area. Each fruit is collected evenly along the sampling rows from seperate vines.

Sampling areas depend on the planting configuration in each row. There are 9 sampling areas in any quadrant of a vine/bay where fruit samples are taken on a rotational basis as follows:

3 fruit from the Trunk area (Trunk base, Trunk mid, Trunk end)

3 fruit from the Mid Leader area (Mid base, Mid middle, Mid end)

3 fruit from the End of Leader area (End base, End middle, End end)

We rotate through these 9 areas taking fruit at random within these sampling areas (eg. Spur – strong cane, sun – shade). The sampling depth remains constant in a range of 10 -15cm, and at the height at which the majority of the fruit hang.

As fruit on a kiwifruit vine have differing maturity characteristics depending on where they hang, our sample collection plan aims to eliminate any bias towards fruit from any one position on the vine.
 

Clearance charges

Independent maturity clearance charges for the 2010 season have now been set and agreed with Zespri.

The charges can be viewed by clicking on the link below or accessed anytime by going to the "Information Tab" - "Clearance Charges" once you have logged into our website. 

Clearance Charges

Maturity clearance - Frequently Asked Questions

Last year Zespri / Agfirst developed a FAQ document to try to cover of some of the frequently asked questions, this has been updated with a few changes and is available on our website under information or click here:

Maturity Clearance FAQ

Clearance Result Industry Trends

Interested to see clearance result comparisons for your district? Then don't forget you can view the Industry trends by logging into our website and click on the "Industry Trends" box then click on the "Sample Result Trends (Area vs ISO Week)".