Weather devastates a third of New Zealand's strawberry plants

Adverse weather in Bay of Plenty in 2023 has devastated a third of the country's strawberry plant supplies. Last year, 13.5 million plants were sold domestically. This year, there will only be an estimated 9 million available to both commercial and home garden markets. According to Berryfruit Propagators chairman Peter McIntyre, it had been a hard time for the main Katikati propagator: "Unfortunately, the biggest grower has suffered the biggest loss and consequently the highest number of plants. We had so much rain in spring and summer. The growers were unable to keep up with the weeding, and it just got on top of them. They weren't able to get enough staff labor to manage the problem." "It got so bad that they had to prioritize what they were going to save and what they were going to ...