Following the heavy rain in the region last week, some Teviot Valley orchardists are reporting damage to about half of their early ripening cherry crop.

Central Otago winegrowers and orchardists are feeling "positive" about the upcoming season and are pleased to have dodged a bullet in the form of a once in a lifetime frost.

Avocados Australia expects supply of their home grown crop to taper off in January and February with the gap being filled by produce from the New Zealand market who had a good crop this year.

Hobby beekeepers could have a new product to recollect swarms and maintain bee reproduction rates thanks to the work of Massey University industrial design student Liam Brankin.

10 Nov:  0857  |  Hawke's Bay's booming apple industry will be watching closely to see where an additional 1750 overseas workers will be stationed - as they hope to head off a repeat of this year's 'apple-picking crisis' .

New Zealand apple and pear growers in Hawke's Bay have no choice but to send their exports through Napier Port. There are simply not enough trucks or drivers available to export the apples via any other port, and even if there were, the cost of doing so is prohibitive.

Both New Zealand and Australia want to attract tourist fruit pickers [‘backpackers’] and seasonal workers from around the Pacific. However, latterly the numbers are becoming somewhat skewered. For every 1,000 backpackers picking fruit and vegetables in New Zealand, there are about 3,000 seasonal workers from the Pacific.

New Zealand's KORU® apple has met strong demand in early tastings in South East Asian and Japanese markets, Fern Ridge Fresh export sales, Naomi Mannering says.

The global demand for avocados is driving a crime wave in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty, where orchards line the state highway heavy with fruit, and are largely unprotected. Avocados will be sold on the black market for a dollar apiece and thieves can easily pick thousands of dollars’ worth of fruit in one night. As demand has soared, gangs with links to organised crime in the

A water-soluble, environmentally friendly fruit sticker that will reduce waste and encourage consumers to wash their fruit has made its creators award winners. For the past eight months, Woodford House students; Sarah Wixon, Maggie Peacock, Zoe Rookes and Rylie Bensemann have been hard at work in the science lab perfecting their product: Bayuble.