ORCHARD PROFILE

Sunchaser has highly fertile free draining soils and easy contour, eminently suitable for horticulture together with a frost free, temperate climate. These attributes assist with the production of proven high volume, quality, early maturing crops which present significant opportunities to achieve price premiums.

Annual rainfall of 1150mm to 1300mm is reasonably well spread and generally adequate to sustain tree establishment and fruit production but to minimise risk during dry periods, large retention dams have been built for the purpose of irrigation.

The Island soils are largely free of the avocado root rot fungus, phytophthora and the separation from the mainland provides a quarantine buffer from this disease.

To date plantings have concentrated on the Hass cultivar together with pollinator cultivars Zutano, Bacon and Ettinger. More recently the new experimental cultivars Maluma and Carmen have been planted with a further planting of Maluma planned for next Spring/Summer. This will ensure Sunchaser remains at the forefront of avocado production in New Zealand.