45 South Cherries

45 South is the biggest grower and handler of cherries in the country. It owns and manages orchards, has a big export grade packhouse with the latest technology, and a nationwide mail order business. It will process 600 tonnes this year which is about 30 per cent of New Zealands total cherry volume.

The company is based in Central Otago and has been operating on orchards established since mid 1980s. Initially the business was a syndicate of owners and was growing peaches and nectarines for the Australia market.

Three and a half years ago the syndicate sold to three investors (two in Auckland and one in Dunedin). Tim Jones comments that that has made the running of the business a little simpler.

These days they grow no peaches and their focus is on Otagos two stonefruit stalwarts cherries and apricots.

Currently they have around 70ha of their own orchards, 130ha that they manage on behalf on others. Around 85% of their business is cherries with the rest apricots.

With such large volumes and a short window to harvest the whole business is set around extremely good harvest management.

Sweet cherries are believed to have originated from the area between the Black and Caspian seas of Asia Minor.

Contemporary cherries are genetically very similar to the initial varieties. Recent breeding programmes have produced modern cultivars with highly desirable characteristics, such as rain resistance, size improvement and seasonal spread. Worldwide, the plantings of cherries have increased dramatically. In New Zealand, the oldest trees date back 140 years.

The market pays a premium for, and is mainly focused on, large / firm cherries. Cherries also have a high content of the antioxidant anthocyanin, (found in grapes and berry fruit also) so are sought after by the health conscious consumer.

Globally 93% of cherries are grown in the Northern hemisphere and 7% grown in the Southern Hemisphere. The total world export traded tonnage is approx 100000 tonnes annually, of which NZ exported 503 tonnes in 2002 and 712 tonnes in 2003 (0.5% 0.7% of the total trade).

Total NZ production was 1,220 tonnes in 2002 and 1,000 tonnes in 2003. The USA produces approx 120,000 tonnes of sweet cherries annually. One family-owned packhouse in the USA processes the equivalent annual NZ production in 2 days.

Chile is the biggest export competitor for New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere, with a large amount of US investment in their cherry growing infrastructure, which is paying off by now producing high quality fruit. Australia is also competing for markets with NZ at the same time of year. The Adelaide cherry growing region of South Australia alone produces the annual equivalent of the total NZ production.

Up until 1986 there was a static level of approx 200 Ha planted in cherries. Summerfruit NZ estimates (at 30th June 2002) that the total area in New Zealand planted in cherries was approx 550Ha. The area planted to June 2003 is estimated at approx 600 Ha of a total area of fruit planted of 53700 Ha, although the data may not be accurate because of confidentiality.

Cherries require a very free draining, fertile and pH neutral soil, preferably a Sandy Loam or loamy texture. The free draining aspect of the soil cannot be overstated, as they hate wet feet and will not produce fruit, and may in fact die under such circumstances. They also tend to be shallow rooted. It is recommended at planting to deep rip your soil to assist drainage and to plant the trees flat on cultivated ground and then to mound the soil around the tree to assist in water run off around the root zone. The ideal pH is in the range of pH 6.0 6.5.

Along with usual orchard practices 45 South have a rigorous IP management system to meet local and overseas market requirements. Similar to pipfruit orchards weve seen in this series they use mating disruption technology on major pests and have drastically reduced the need to spray for many of the standard pests.

This is apparently the latest and greatest in cherry packhouses. It has optical sizers, colour sorting and soft sorting.

There are auto punnet and auto box fillers. All fruit post harvest is quickly taken to -1 degrees C. The fruit is flumed around in water and delivered to the sizers that way.

The New Zealand cherry industry as a whole is affected by post harvest fruit quality problems. These are mainly caused by improper post harvest handling and storage, which results in soft fruit, pitting, loss of skin brilliance, stem browning and shrivelling, and storage diseases. 45 South aims to deal with these problems head on.

Question here about what treatments used to fumigate and disinfect the crop esp for export. (According to literature on the Internet Methyl bromide (MBr) has been used in the past by the industry to fumigate and disinfect the consignments of cherries, thus gaining entry into Japanese markets. However, the use of MBr contributes to soft fruit and poor storage and shelf life, thus inferior quality. On top of that MBr has a very bad name environmentally).

This is a mail order business operated out of Cromwell and also part of 45 operation. Pre Xmas it sent out around 20 tonne of fruit post Xmas Tim says the business is very quiet.