One Hawke’s Bay grower has lost thousands of dollars’ worth of produce with nothing left to pick at the peak of the season.
Walking the strawberry patch right now is not so easy — weeks of wet conditions on the East Coast have damaged thousands of dollars’ worth of strawberries at a Havelock North farm.
At the start of the season, staff at the Havelock North Strawberry Patch were picking 400kg worth of strawberries a day. But the past two weeks of miserable weather has meant crews have not been able to pick at all — or have had to throw away buckets of damaged strawberries.
Strawberry Patch owner Ian Tucker said the past two weeks have been tough.
“You look down the rows and there’s so many water-damaged ones that they’ve had to throw out,” he said. “There’s just as many getting thrown out than what we bring into the shop to actually sell and — for this time the year and the middle of summer when you’re expecting the weather to be good — It’s been pretty disappointing really.
“We should be making our money at this time of the year and when you’re throwing out more strawberries because they’re damaged than you’re actually putting in the shop it’s hard.”
Experts say nationwide we are four million strawberry plants short due to weather in previous years destroying baby propagating plants.
Strawberry Patch employee Gordan Foster said strawberries simply do not like wet weather.
“They like sunshine and heat and, when you’ve got snow on the mountains in January, it doesn’t help for strawberries to grow.”
Hope on the horizon?
MetService meteorologist John Law said the region was due for more settled weather as the month continued.
“Over the last few weeks of December and the start of January, we’ve seen a lot of the easterly winds bringing a fair bit of cloud and wet weather back in towards Hawke’s Bay,” he said.
“It’s enough conditions to generate some really big convective clouds, which can generate some really impressive amounts of hail, which can then cause issues for farmers on the ground.”
News of more settled weather to come would be welcome for growers hoping to finish the season on a high.