More than 100 growers and industry attended the R&D update in Te Puke on Tuesday. It was encouraging to see so many people, considering it was the first fine day after continuous heavy rain, and growers were probably keen to winter prune their orchards.

Presentations from the meeting are available on the KVH website here and summarised below.

Psa-V situation update and seasonal reminders—Linda Peacock (KVH)

• Spring is when we will see Psa-V progress
• Protect orchards through autumn/winter with robust protective spray programmes
• What growers do NOW to protect their orchards will make a difference in spring

Psa-V product testing trials update—Elaine Gould (Zespri)

• Glasshouse trials
• Hort16A trials
• Gold3 Elicitor trials
• Copper trials
• Biological Control Agents

Orchard trials update—Mary Black (Zespri)

• Sustainable Farming Fund project—optimising copper use
• Trial updates
• Optimal time to winter prune Gold3
• Autumn/winter spray protection in Gold3
• Crop safety of late season copper
• Bud-rot trials in Hayward and Green14

OPC bud-rot trials—Jayne Chamberlain and Severine Brun (Zespri)

• French bud-rot trials 2013
• New Zealand bud-rot trials 2013
• Mitigating bud-rot
• Optimising outcome from infected flowers

Metabolomics—Greg Clark (Zespri)

• Understanding kiwifruit metabolism (the kiwifruit vine biochemical processes that ‘make it tick’)
• How kiwifruit plants adapt their metabolism for survival under stress, including disease
• Can we manipulate kiwifruit metabolism to fight disease?