NIR helps increase grower returns

Christmas is now behind us and only a couple of months before the kiwifruit harvest commences again.

Aongatete is primed and ready for the new season and pleased to offer growers a real point of positive difference affecting pack out and returns, says Aongatete grower services manager Tracey Chinnery. “Last season Zespri introduced new maturity standards for SunGold requiring clearance by individual sizes. This negatively impacted many earlier harvesting growers, particularly those who decided to harvest without all size clearances.”

“Many facilities would not have been able to accept the un-cleared sizes into inventory and the fruit classed as reject.

“Not so at Aongatete. We utilised our Near Infra-Red technology to assess the un-cleared fruit – separating the higher dry matter pieces for inclusion into inventory after an independent audit. “For Aongatete’s growers this allowed an average recovery of about 40 to 50 per cent – size profile dependant – of un-cleared fruit, and in some lines recovered greater than 80 per cent.”

Tracey says Kiwistart growers make real time decisions around harvest and a couple of days can significantly affect returns.

“Making decisions when not all of your fruit sizes have cleared adds an entirely new complication. We have the solution. Additionally, we used NIR to assist growers with lower dry matter in a challenging growing season and packed Class 1 fruit that would not have otherwise passed.”

In 2017 the Zespri Minimum Taste Standard for SunGold is rising again with a potential significant impact on growers in a low dry matter year. “NIR provides a non-destructive, non-contact assessment of fruit. The ability to identify the dry matter, brix, flesh colour and firmness of an individual fruit within milliseconds provides huge opportunities for segregation and inventory management.

“It is only one of a number of advanced technological investments Aongatete has made to maximise returns for growers,” says Tracey.


0 Comments

There are no comments on this article.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to make a comment. Login Now
Opinion Poll

We're not running a poll right now. Check back soon!