Day Neutral Variety Trial Update

Geoff Langford

Every year NZ Berryfruit Propagators do two variety trials—one in Auckland, with both day neutral and short day varieties, and one in Lincoln, with only day neutral varieties.  The Lincoln trial is planted in September from plants held potted since May.  Picking started in November, in an outdoor table-top system.  We expect to continue harvesting until the end of March.

It has been a fascinating and challenging year with enough really hot days to challenge the fruiting characteristics of the varieties in the trial.  We have learned a number of things this season.  Mostly, we have confirmed the new varieties we got excited about last season.

Our key knowledge gained this season:

• Improving the watering system and the media has made a substantial difference to both yields and average berry size
• Moxie, Valiant and Royal Royce have all performed well
• Royal Royce performed much better than last season, echoing the results in the Auckland trial this past season
• Cabrillo continues to perform well, although many growers don’t like the flavour
• Berry size of all varieties has been great this season
• This average berry size in this trial was actually better than we recorded in the Auckland trial

Yields and Berry size up to 14^th March

It is interesting to look back on this trial and results we were getting 20 years ago.  In the 2003/04 season average yields for the season were 314g/plant with average berry size of 14.8g/fruit.  The main varieties were Sunset, Gabrielle, Seascape, Aromas and Diamante.  Contrast this with average results this year of 829g/plant and 29g/fruit with 2 more weeks to go.  This highlights how far we have come with both varieties and production systems.

Seasonal Trends

Berry size: Averaging over 40 grams per fruit for all varieties just after Xmas was really exciting, and at least we were not faced with trying to pack them in 250g punnets!  We had some individual fruit that topped 100g each which is a new record for us.

Some varieties we were testing this past season have not stacked up in berry size and we believe that any variety that produces quaternary fruit is undesirable. Think about flower branch structure: first primary (king fruit on a truss), then secondary, then tertiary (getting small) and finally quaternary that are a real pain to harvest and many consider unmarketable.

Interestingly, the weekly fruit yield largely mirrors the berry size graph, peaking at the end of December, dropping off by mid February, and bouncing back in the late summer.

Although peaks and troughs in yield over the season are normal, the many causes are something we want to understand more thoroughly.