Confident there's a golden future | Rural

The winners of the 2012 Bay of Plenty Ballance Farm Environment Awards will be announced at an evening in Tauranga on February 21. This week, Elaine Fisher profiles one of the entrants - a kiwifruit orchard at Te Puna.

Buying a kiwifruit orchard and grafting a new variety just before the virulent disease Psa-V was found in New Zealand may not seem fortuitous, but Mark Mayston says his family have no regrets about their purchase.

"If we can keep Psa-V out or learn to manage it, this orchard has a bright future," said Mark, who manages the orchard owned by family company Bruntwood Farms, which includes his parents, Peter and Jenny, and younger brother Robbie.

While Mark is confident answers will be found to controlling Psa-V, he also believes that, if they aren't, the seven- hectare orchard at Te Puna has potential for other crops or land use.

That confidence comes from the family's long history in the kiwifruit industry, in which Peter and Jenny have been involved since the mid-1970s. They subdivided their farm at Plummers Point to fund development of their first kiwifruit orchard, built their own packhouse and have expanded ever since. Their four sons were immersed in the kiwifruit industry through their childhood. Peter and Jenny were also founders of the Apata packhouse and coolstore, along with Brian Earp and Mike Muller.

The orchard is one of several the family own and was in a run-down state when they bought it in 2010. "It was a green orchard on contoured land, which had been managed using organic practices, but the vines were not thriving," said Mark.

The vines were growing on Bruno rootstock, which is a bonus given that variety appears more tolerant of Psa-V. The green hayward vines have been removed and the entire orchard was grafted 17 months ago to the new early gold variety G3, which in early January had an impressive crop of fruit and vigorous replacement canes.

The entire block has been covered with artificial shelter to protect it from wind and hail. Even though the orchard is on the harbour edge, frost is a threat.

"We have installed a 10-inch bore on the property for irrigation and frost protection. Alongside this system, we run a Waterforce online monitoring system, which detects soil moisture, temperature and rainfall."

The bore is operated by a 220kvh diesel generator, which starts automatically once sensors in the orchard record a pre-set temperature. "The whole system is on-line so we can monitor it remotely, even by cellphone. However, if there is a frost, we come out to the orchard to ensure everything is working correctly. You can't afford to have anything go wrong."

Mark has seen first-hand the devastation Psa-V caused to gold orchards in Italy and management on all the family orchards includes strict hygiene protocols for people and vehicles entering or leaving. Pruning equipment is sterilised and, on each orchard, nurseries to grow budwood are established, avoiding the need to bring in plant material.

Despite the fact pollen was among the suspects as a means of transmitting Psa-V, artificial pollination was used on the orchard to supplement the work of bees but the source of that pollen was carefully scrutinised to ensure it came from a Psa-V free area.

The disease has changed orchard management practices and created uncertainty about the future, but it hasn't stopped the Mayston family from planning ahead and remaining confident in the industry's future and the future of the Te Puna orchard in particular.

"When we looked at the orchard, the adjoining, overgrown land wasn't part of the sale, but we negotiated to buy it because we wanted to be able to control what was happening on it and clean up the gorse, tobacco weed and other plants. We have started a native planting programme on about 7 ha of steeper land that runs to the harbour edge. This is a five-year plan, with 1.5 ha planted to date."

A machine was brought in to mulch gorse and young natives suppled by Naturally Native and chosen for their suitability to the harbour environment were planted.

The family is acutely aware of the sensitivity to the harbour to run-off and see the plantings as helping reduce that risk. An area of wetland has also been cleared and is once again subject to tidal flushing now flood gates have been opened.