While the impacts of a recent hailstorm in New Zealand's Motueka area on the South Island have been described as "devastating" for the affected growers, a pome fruit industry group expects effects on the overall crop will be insignificant.

Pipfruit New Zealand manager for member services, Gary Jones, told www.freshfruitportal.com his team was still putting together an understanding of the damages.

"The whole Nelson area down there is very spread out so it's the northern tip of that region going into the National Park around Motueka and Riwaka that's been affected," he said.

"It's very severe in that one particular spot, and we know it's isolated to some hills there and the bay and some plains, but it hasn't got down further on towards the much bigger region of the Wiamea Plains; there's no hail in the main Nelson regions at all.

"In terms of New Zealand it’s probably similar to the amount of hail we’ve had over the last two years. We had a big hailstorm in Hawke’s Bay which could have lost similar numbers, but we’re still quantifying."

In contrast however, Hawke's Bay represents around two-thirds of the nation's apple crop, while Jones estimated Nelson's share as 28-29%.

"That area up the top of the region is a percentage of that as well, so it’s certainly not going to be a significant amount of the New Zealand apple crop.

"But certainly for the people in that particular area, a lot of the damage is 75-100%."

Jones said many growers were diversifying geographically to spread their risk in the face of common weather events like this.

"To put hail covers up almost costs the same as planting other orchards so often what growers will have in these situations is hail insurance, but also they will look to geographically insulate themselves.

"So they'll have blocks spread out across regions so that they spread their risk, and that's probably one of the more common approaches in New Zealand at the moment rather than covering them up.

"Hail happens every year but it's always isolated so it's a lot of bad luck and chance in getting affected."

Related story: Hail hits NZ apple and kiwifruit orchards

Photo: www.shutterstock.com

www.freshfruitportal.com