Avocados Go Global

The Avocado Industry Council wants to triple productivity and quadruple returns by 2023. It’s an audacious target and achieving it will mean overcoming some significant challenges. 

In April 2014, the avocado industry announced record sales of $136m, but to grow and develop markets off shore, the industry needs to overcome a number of challenges both in growing the fruit and in export markets.

CEO of NZ Avocado, Jen Scoular says the biggest of those challenges is irregular crop bearing. She says crops perform well one year and poorly the next and this problem needs to be addressed in order for the New Zealand industry to develop export markets.

The recently announced PGP will go a long way to funding the programme of research which will hopefully solve such challenges facing the industry.

In April 2014 the Avocado Industry Council announced it was entering a partnership with the Ministry for Primary Industries in a new Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) programme called Go Global. In general, PGP programmes aim to boost the productivity and profitability of the primary sector through investment between government and industry. They are generally five to seven year programmes monitored by an independent panel (the Investment Advisory Panel) and MPI.

The aim of the five year programme in the avocado industry is to increase productivity and capability, with the aim of increasing sales to more than a quarter of a billion dollars by 2023.

Jen Scoular says the aim of the PGP programme is to help position New Zealand’s avocado industry to capitalise on the growing demand domestically and in Asia for NZ’s product. The Go Global programme’s vision is to equip the industry with the tools to triple productivity to 12 tonnes per hectare and quadruple industry returns to $280 million by 2023.  However, industry commentators have pointed out that competition is looming in the shape of Central and South American avocado growers. They say that in roughly five years time, those producers will start to target the Asian markets with their produce as their traditional US market becomes saturated.

The PGP programme will address the industry’s biggest challenge of low and irregular bearing. A total investment of $8.56 million has been secured for the programme, with MPI committing $4.28 million over five years, and the balance coming from industry partners as a mixture of cash and in-kind contributions.

To set a reasonable crop, the received wisdom on avocados is that the trees must have several periods where the maximum temperature exceeds 17°C and the minimum temperature does not drop below 11°C during the blossom period. Both cold rainy weather and hot winds reduce fruit set and increase the drop of already set fruit. Spring temperatures are said to be one of the limiting factors for avocados succeeding.

Alvaro Vidiella is NZ Avocado’s Research and Development Manager and has been charged with overseeing the research programme. He says the aim is to identify the factors that trigger irregular bearing. Once they identify the main causes of those triggers, they can start coming up with management strategies to deal with the triggers.

He says that for example, a good spring in 2013 led to successful flowering and fruit set in many orchards. But trees that yield well in 2014 would traditionally have poor yields in 2015.

One of the questions is “does it make sense to remove the excessive fruit set of a good year to balance out the trees for the following season?” He says it’s a common practice in the industry to prune excess flowers in early spring, but there is a lack of objective information about the right timing and the severity of flower pruning.

There’s a trial operating in Katikati to determine the impact of removal of some fruit from overloaded trees. Alvaro says there’s also a new project looking at irrigation. This trial is based on the idea that water-deficit stress during bloom or fruit set may result in low flower numbers or cause excessive flower and fruit drop.  For this project they have set up trees with rain shelters.

A second trial is looking at the effect of temperature on flowers and fruitlet development. Other projects include research into frost protection and better pollination techniques.

In August 2014 the Seeka company announced that it had secured the NZ rights to grow and market a US developed variety of avocado called Gem, which is said to have a more even crop without the inconsistency of the main cultivar currently used in NZ.