Welcome to our week 21 update. With the SunGold harvest complete, our attention is on the Hayward harvest. The Hayward organic harvest is 62% complete compared to the industry at 72% complete. The Hayward conventional harvest is 66% complete, compared to the industry at 65% complete. The first of the Controlled Atmosphere (CA) rooms have been completed, further rooms being weather and fruit maturity dependent. Harvest this week will be managed around the weather, which is looking patchy for the next seven days. Depending on weather, harvest is scheduled to finish at the end of next week.
The shipping programme remains strong with Seeka continuing to load out of coolstore approx. 1m trays per week to all markets.
Technical Update
In comparison with 2018 the Hayward dry matter is still up by 1% and fresh weight is down by an average of seven grams. Fruit pressure is similar to the same time last year with the average brix ahead by a factor of 0.7. Comparing fruit pressure at the same brix level the 2019 fruit pressure is significantly firmer than it was at the same brix level in 2018. The main reason for this is fruit being less mature in 2019 as measured by percentage brix conversion compared with 2018. We are now seeing the first of the clearance samples reaching both the brix and percentage brix when fully ripe target levels, with a significant increase in the rate of brix accumulation noted in the last week as the result of an increase in the chill unit accumulation in key growing regions. Comparing the key growing regions for the last three years shows a significant increase in low chill accumulation in the last week in Te Puke, Coromandel, Kerikeri and Paengaroa resulting in a rapid rise in brix accumulation in those regions.
To the numbers:
SunGold
Conventional trays Industry packed 73.7m Seeka 14.4m (19.6%)
Average size Industry 29.4 Seeka 29.3
Seeka in store 7.5m On order 1.1m
SunGold
Organic trays Industry packed 1.0m Seeka 169k (16.9%)
Average size Industry 29.7 Seeka 29.6
Seeka in store 104k On order 17k
Hayward
Conventional trays Industry packed 42.1m Seeka 11.0m (26.2%)
Average size Industry 32.8 Seeka 32.3
Seeka in store 5.7m On order 1.2m
Hayward
Organic trays Industry packed 2.0m Seeka 437k (21.2%)
Average size Industry 35.9 Seeka 35.1
Seeka in store 226k On order 110k
Sweet Green
Trays Industry packed 396k Seeka 46k (11.7%)
Average size Industry 37.3 Seeka 38.2
Seeka in store nil On order nil
Shipping programme complete
All growers are invited to attend a meeting to hear Bruce Cameron (Chairman - Zespri) speak.
The meeting starts 8.30am sharp, 13 June at our Head Office in Te Puke.
My kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
Contacts