Yields best on record
A record harvest for pea yields ended this week with Heinz Wattie’s Hornby plant running 24 hours a day virtually non-stop since the last day of November.
The company contracts 220 Canterbury farmers to grow the pea crop which flourished this season under cooler growing temperatures and steady rainfall.
South Island agricultural manager Mark Daniels said the season had been the best on record for pea yields.
‘‘We had that nice regular rainfall in the spring and no extremes in temperatures. Those nice, moderate temperatures meant most of those crops didn’t come under stress. (It was) incredible really.’’
Daniels said the harvest was later for most pea growers and some juggling was required at the Hornby plant to keep systems on track, however there were few days when it was not running 24 hours.
‘‘It was mostly 24/7 from the first day of harvest at the last day of November. There was a couple of days we pulled back, but it was virtually non-stop all the way through.’’ Crop quality was high, he said. Each of the contracted growers is assigned an agronomist by the company.
Daniels said the close contact between them and growers gave the company greater certainty over product quality and volumes.
Growers had received higher than average returns this season from high performing varieties, he said.
The green bean harvest of 10,000 tonnes is following the pea picking and Heinz Wattie’s commissioned its $1.6 million upgrade of its green bean processing lines at its Hornby plant this week.
Christchurch operations manager Trevor Biggs said the investment in new equipment and technology would lead to a step-up in processing quality, benefiting domestic and export customers.
‘‘Because beans are a ground crop which is neither shelled, like peas, or peeled, like carrots, they are perhaps the most difficult crop we process. The harvesting process picks up foreign matter, and it is a significant challenge to eliminate bean stalks and field material.’’ He said the automated colour sorter technology would help discard stalks, stones and dirt picked up with beans.
New washing equipment and automated sorters has been added to the processing plant with equipment to deal with clusters of beans arriving from harvesting. The technology will reduce water use and bean wastage.