Each spring, agricultural helicopter operators head to fields across NZ, their blades churning up warmer air on order to keep frosts from affecting the crops. This season, choppers have been out in full force amongst Waikato’s vineyards and orchards, where the frost was unlike anything seen in recent years.
As reported on stuff.co.nz, frostbite can severely affect a harvest and a grower’s back pocket. Grapes, for example, are currently getting new leaves which are soft, tender, and vulnerable to frost. That is why helicopters, doing frost protection, are now hovering at low altitude above the ground during the pitch black night. The air they churn may only be a few degrees warmer than at ground level but can make a vital difference for tender crops.
Frost decimates blueberry crop
During one of these frosty nights, a Waikato family watched their blueberry crops dying in front of their eyes. Monavale Blueberries, New Zealand’s largest certified organic blueberry orchard, sits on 44 hectares near Cambridge, and should be full of white flowering bushes and the deafening hum of bees.
Instead, a one-in-50-year frost has left the shrubs brown, the bees gone and an estimated 300 tons of potential produce destroyed. According to Orchard manger Oliver de Groot, they’ve lost more than 90% of their crop, which was in peak flowering when an unseasonal heavy frost hit the Waikato region on Friday morning.
Source: stuff.co.nz