Frankly Speaking

Frankly Speaking - Week 19
11 May 2020

Week ending Sunday 10 May 2020

Welcome to our week 19 update, bringing our Seeka growers and stakeholders the latest harvest and Industry .

Seeka packed 1.282m trays of Hayward last week while largely completing the SunGold harvest with just one last orchard still going in Northland which is picking well over estimate. The 1.282m of Hayward means we have enough fruit in store to meet our shipping commitments for this week and next.

On the safety front we had a dreadful and incident filled Saturday. There were two serious harm injuries involving forklifts at the Huka Pak waste marshalling area and at the KKP bin tip. There was a significant near miss at Main Road, Katikati involving a car, a stabilising wire connected to a power pole and live power lines and finally a medical event involving a worker who had left Aongatete unwell, whose condition deteriorated and who tragically is not expected to survive. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family to whom we have offered the support you would expect.

Thankfully the two people hurt in the serious harm incidents will make a full recovery but it’s a stark reminder about the need to be vigilant with our safety focus to ensure that everyone one is safe.

Today we expect the Government to detail the aspects and timing of the move from level 3 to level 2 containment. At Seeka we have resolved to continue with our current operating protocols through to the end of harvest, expected in the first few days of June or earlier.

Our technical team have been carefully monitoring the Hayward maturities and this is outlined in the few bullet points below:

  • Brix development is the key indicator for harvest timing in Hayward
  • Results from the Monitor Orchard Program and early season testing show that this seasons fruit is less mature than for the same time last year as measured by % brix when fully ripe by brix

  • This is attributed to the warmer and slightly wetter conditions we have experienced this autumn which has enabled later season fresh weight and dry matter gain but has meant that brix conversion is delayed as a result
  • Seeka is looking to target frost prone sites and historic early start orchards with the first round of maturity testing and then follow these with orchards sitting within the optimum brix range
  • The target brix for optimal storage this season is between 9.5-12 brix which is in line with results from Zespri outturn data in Europe which shows that the best results (lowest rates of adjusted defects) are from those lines of fruit harvested between this range 
  • Regionally there is some variation in the Hayward maturity data and generally the areas affected by drought and without irrigation with much higher brixes – and we are keeping a close on these areas.

Over the weekend Seeka had 230 RSEs arrive and join the Seeka team. These RSEs are from the Hawkes Bay and come from the apple industry. Some of the RSEs will be heading into the packhouses for the remainder of harvest and all will undertake training in kiwifruit winter pruning and head out into the orchards to work with the orchard division to give us the required resource to undertake pruning. If you find yourself short of labour and need a hand with winter work on orchard please discuss this with your CRM.

Finally – your Seeka Grower Council has been meeting weekly to get harvest updates and consider pool issues as required. We will continue with these meetings through to the end of harvest in a few weeks’ time.

To the numbers:      

SunGold conventional trays Industry packed 84.9m Seeka 15.9m (18.7%)
Average size Industry 29.70 Seeka 29.61
Seeka in store 8.5m On order 982k
SunGold Organic trays Industry packed 1.4m Seeka 153k (10.5%)
Average size  Industry 30.10 Seeka 29.36
Seeka in store 83k On order 38k
Hayward conventional trays Industry packed 19.8m Seeka 5.7m (28.8%)
Average size Industry 33.34 Seeka 33.06
Seeka in store 1.2m On order 1.2m
Hayward Organic trays Industry packed 641k Seeka 171k (26.7%)
Average size Industry 37.25 Seeka 37.79
Seeka in store 32k On order 84k
Sweet Green trays Industry packed 268k Seeka 18.4k (6.9%)
Average size  Industry 37.72 Seeka 36.98
Seeka in store Nil On order nil


 

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