Psa The New Zealand Story

Psa THE NEW ZEALAND STORY Reflections from the kiwifruit industry’s biggest biosecurity response and recovery

Bought to you by Kiwifruit Vine Health

We are extremely grateful for the generous sponsorship and support from the following organisations:

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Thank you to co-authors and interviewers Elaine Fisher and Sue Hoffart, and editor Lisa Gibbison Elaine Fisher

Sue Hoffart

Lisa Gibbison

Published 2021 by Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) 25 Miro Street Mount Maunganui 3116 Copyright No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

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CONTENTS 04

51

INTRODUCTION ҉ Stu Hutchings

MAF REFLECTIONS ҉ Barry O’Neil

҉ David Carter ҉ Psa Timeline

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55

GROWERS REFLECTIONS

PLANT & FOOD RESEARCH REFLECTIONS ҉ Joel Vanneste

҉ Peter West

҉ Bruce Campbell

҉ Murray Holmes ҉ Braden Hungerford ҉ Carol Franklin

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҉ Colin Jenkins ҉ John Cook ҉ Ken Reekie ҉ Robbie Ellison

ZESPRI, NZKGI AND KVH REFLECTIONS ҉ David Tanner

҉ Steve Thomas

҉ John Burke ҉ Lain Jager

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҉ Mel Auld

PASTORAL CARE REFLECTIONS

҉ Mike Chapman ҉ Natalie Milne ҉ Peter McBride ҉ Peter Ombler

҉ Ian Greaves

҉ Shane Max

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҉ Sue Groenewald & Neill Malcon

POST-HARVEST REFLECTIONS

҉ Terry Richards

҉ Andrew Dawson ҉ Debbie Robinson ҉ Karen Roche ҉ Linda Peacock ҉ Neale Cameron ҉ Rod Fry ҉ Stu Weston 3

INTRODUCTION COMING TOGETHER TO RECOVER AND PROSPER STU HUTCHINGS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE KIWIFRUIT VINE HEALTH When I joined Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) in April 2018 it was immediately apparent to me that I had entered an industry that knew where it had come from and where it was headed.

I think that’s the essence of this booklet, respecting and acknowledging what was, as well as looking forward and embracing what’s to come. The two aren’t mutually exclusive of course and as you read through the stories on the pages ahead, I’m sure it will become increasingly obvious to you – as it has to me during the three years I’ve been involved – that as an industry we’ve found a way to not only successfully balance the two concepts but to also have them complement each other.

We are now 10 years on from that fateful day (5 November, 2010) when Psa was first confirmed in New Zealand. From day one, people have been affected by the discovery in many ways. All have their own perspectives and stories to share, and there are far more than we could ever cover in this booklet, but from the range we’ve tried to bring together in this reflective keepsake there are some common themes about dealing with a biosecurity incursion head on and coming out the other side of it: stick together, work in partnership, be flexible and keep moving forward.

The importance and benefit of camaraderie during the tough times can’t be understated. There are endless comments throughout this booklet about how important it was during the Psa response, and how much it meant to people, to know there was always someone around willing to lend an ear, or a shoulder, or a helping hand in any way they could. As an industry, the realisation hit very quickly that everyone was in the same boat - mentally, physically, and financially - and part of the solution was to jump-in headfirst to help a mate.

People above all else, became the mantra and to this day we’re all still reaping the benefits of being closely connected and committed to coming together whenever and wherever we need to.

The more formal aspect of this that needs acknowledging is the grower welfare and pastoral support systems put in place at the time by those leading the charge at New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI), especially Ian Greaves. Those systems and lessons were literally life-saving for some and to this day they are something that as an industry we still have in place and can quickly ramp up if we were to ever face another big biosecurity incursion, or in fact any other big adverse event that impacts on growers’ wellbeing, as was most recently the case during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Borne from that sense of camaraderie is the willingness of everyone across the industry – at every level – to work together, in partnership so that we are well prepared for whatever the next big biosecurity threat or incursion might be. It became obvious right from the start of the Psa response that by joining forces your chances of success are always much, much greater. This booklet provides reflections from people who are all experts in their own fields (everything from growers and orchard managers to technical specialists, researchers, communications and logistics personnel) and realised immediately that even if you don’t know enough quite yet to be able to see the full picture, it is by working with others, listening, and sharing information, resources and skills that you are able to at least know you have all the pieces of the jigsaw at the one table striving towards the same goal of solving the puzzle.

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KIWIFRUIT VINE IN RESEARCH

HEALTHY SPRING ORCHARD PSA MAGNIFIED 6000 TIMES With the formation of KVH this concept of working in partnership with growers, supported by industry, taking a science-based approach and learning the lessons from Psa were taken to an important new level when the organisation immediately backed the concept of what was to become the Government Industry Agreement (GIA) for Biosecurity Readiness and Response.

KVH, on behalf of the kiwifruit industry, signed up to GIA, in May 2014. It was a historical milestone – we knew it was the right thing to do because as many have mentioned in their reflections, as an industry we realised that we weren’t adequately prepared for Psa, and that we needed to take leadership responsibility into the future. We were the first industry group to join the partnership (there are now more than 20), where we have a formal role alongside government in making decisions about biosecurity risks that affect our industry, how we improve readiness for future biosecurity events, and jointly respond to future outbreaks.

We must remember that biosecurity is not about one or two high-profile pests. We will never identify all biosecurity risks and we don’t know what we don’t know. We are on the right path but there is still more that we can – and must – do. GIA allows for this. By signing what are called Operational Agreements within GIA, KVH and government through Biosecurity New Zealand have committed to doing everything possible to stop another Psatype event from occurring and working together to achieve the best possible outcomes should there be an incursion.

It’s now a decade since Psa was first confirmed on our orchards. This period in our industry’s history has been tremendously challenging so it is heartening that growers and the industry have come through the Psa crisis with sturdy resilience and the industry’s future pathway is looking more positive than ever, with biosecurity a clear focus now and into the decades ahead.

We’ve come together, supported and listened to each other, and never forgotten those days that made us who we are now. This booklet and the words on each and every page don’t just represent the past – they also represent the future. Only by knowing where you’ve come from and the journey that you’ve been on, can you know what your next steps are and be sure you’re taking the right path going forward.

I hope you find the New Zealand kiwifruit industry’s Psa story honest, heartwarming, and inspiring. Although there were some dark times when the outlook was bleak, our resilience and unity resulted in a strong recovery and we’re now more prepared and ready to respond if we need to.

The agreements establish the operational details for readiness and response activities, including the roles and responsibilities of all the parties before, during and after a response, as well as cost-sharing detail. Much of the work KVH does across the industry around how we prepare for the arrival of unwanted pests or diseases with industry partners, is part of these agreements. It means that if we are faced with another incursion, we can hit the ground running and are prepared to take immediate action so that we can limit the impacts of any threat on our orchards and industry.

STU HUTCHINGS 5

DAVID CARTER

THE RECOVERY AND STRENGTH OF THE KIWIFRUIT INDUSTRY IS A CREDIT TO ALL INVOLVED IN PSA 6

IMAGE CREDIT: SIMON HOYLE, SOUTHLIGHT

When I became Minister of Agriculture and Minister for Biosecurity in 2008, I was acutely aware of New Zealand’s economic dependence on primary industries and therefore how at risk we were to any disease incursions.

As a sheep and beef farmer before coming into Parliament, the big fear that was instilled in my brain was an incursion of foot and mouth disease.

So, as Biosecurity Minister, I recall an early briefing from biosecurity officials telling me that there was a disease called Psa running rampant through the Italian kiwifruit industry at the time, that was the equivalent disease for kiwifruit in New Zealand.

In other words, Psa was to kiwifruit what foot and mouth disease was to our pastoral industries.

But I will return to those days shortly.

Prior to the Psa incursion to New Zealand I was working closely with officials who were themselves working with all our primary industries on a rational approach to any new disease incursion.

I was accepting that such incursions could occur.

With increasing volumes of international cargo, and at that time, increasing numbers of international visitors, no border could guarantee total protection.

Border breeches would occur, and new diseases would arrive.

We needed a rational approach to responding to incursions and one that would allow us to know the true potential cost to an industry, rather than predetermining an elimination strategy to every possible incursion. In effect, a type of preventative cost benefit analysis before the event.

These discussions meant industries had to front up with realistic attitudes, and a preparedness to share the resourcing and costs of any remedial approach.

Such discussions evolved into what has since become the Government Industry Agreement (GIA) for Biosecurity Readiness and Response. It is fair to say there wasn’t unanimous support at the time from all our primary industries for this new approach – however I’m pleased that the kiwifruit industry was always onboard and was the first to join the formal partnership once the concept was established.

Now back to the outbreak, I recall officials telling me of a possible disease incursion that was manifesting itself in Te Puke. Was it Psa? There were a nervous few days while we all awaited identification.

When Psa was eventually positively identified I recall my diary being rapidly adjusted so that I could get to the particular orchard that quickly became known as “ground zero”.

The initial proposed response seemed obvious. Stop the spread of Psa, cut out infected vines (some were cut out to ground level, others were cut back to leaders) and bury or burn the cuttings.

The question was who would pay and how much would it cost.

Within a few days, a response package was determined that had an estimated worth of $50million. Industry said it would meet 50% of the cost and wanted the government to agree to a $25million contribution. An answer was wanted, and needed, immediately.

I remember a late Wednesday evening meeting with Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister Bill English, who both listened to my demands for a quick and realistic response.

Kiwifruit industry leaders and officials were in my office for meetings during the next 24 hours (including John Loughlin, Lain Jager, and Peter Ombler, the Director General of MAF Murray Sherwin and Barry O’Neil) and I could see their relief when I told them that funding had been secured. The only hurdle remaining was that it needed to go to Cabinet on the following Monday, but with the support of John Key and Bill English, that was a formality. The package could be announced immediately after Cabinet approval.

What I can recall more than anything is the speed at which the package then came together, and my satisfaction at the way the industry co-operated so willingly.

We had achieved the first ever Government Industry Agreement in a matter of days. It was a sensible, pragmatic approach determined in the heat of a crisis and to this day I think everyone can be incredibly proud of that.

Late last year, I delivered my valedictory speech to Parliament - a symbolic event for any Member of Parliament, but a particularly significant event for me personally, after a 26-year political career.

In my speech I stated that the day Psa was identified in New Zealand could have been one of my darkest days, but that it was actually one of my proudest. What I was referring to, was the resilience and the tenacity of the orchardists and the industry leaders at that time. From the reflections within this booklet, we get a clear sense of that, as well as the determination of everyone involved to contribute in one way or another to what we all hoped would turn out to be a successful biosecurity response.

As they faced adversity in November 2010, how many of them would have predicted the strength of the industry only a decade on? And how many would have thought during those early days that in 10 years’ time the lessons and experiences from the Psa response would be looked upon so favourably as examples of what can and should be done well when we work together in a genuine partnership.

The recovery and the strength of the kiwifruit industry, allowing such a contribution that it now delivers to the New Zealand economy, is a credit to all of those involved.

I salute them.

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Psa TIMELINE 5 NOVEMBER – PSA DETECTED IN NEW ZEALAND

23 NOVEMBER – CONTAINMENT STRATEGIES

Psa is first detected on a Te Puke orchard.

Technical experts from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), Plant & Food Research (PFR) and Zespri visit the area to confirm the disease. The orchard is quarantined.

Industry, government and science agencies try several strategies to contain the disease. Infected vine cuttings are destroyed in huge incinerators or by burial in deep pits. Copper sprays and other chemical solutions are trialled. Movement between orchards is controlled, and equipment is disinfected.

11 NOVEMBER – 75 ORCHARDS SHOWING POSSIBLE SYMPTOMS MAF begins checking other kiwifruitgrowing regions for Psa symptoms.

Scientists complete tests to determine what strain of Psa is present. Testing eventually shows that New Zealand has two strains: biovar 3 (highly virulent Psa-V, especially to Hort16A cultivar) and biovar 4 (less virulent Psa-LV).

PSA IN ITALY Psa is identified in kiwifruit orchards in northern Italy. Outbreaks remain sporadic for several years.

1984

DECEMBER – KIWIFRUIT VINE HEALTH IS ESTABLISHED Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) is established to lead the industry response to Psa-V. KVH begins hosting numerous research and development update meetings featuring the latest scientific and industry information.

KVH addresses areas where the knowledge of Psa and how it causes infection is poor, and commissions research. Zespri is contracted by KVH to coordinate and facilitate a comprehensive research programme. This will allow better understanding of the bacteria and determine effective techniques to prevent infection and spread.

2008 1992

PSA IN JAPAN Psa symptoms first appear on green kiwifruit growing in Japan. The disease is then confirmed in Korea a few years later, in 1988.

MAY – GOLD3 IDENTIFIED AS PSA TOLERANT Gold3, growing in a PFR research orchard, appears to be tolerant to Psa-V. PFR fast-tracks commercialisation.

Commercialisation gets underway and more than 2,000 hectares of Gold3 plants are released to growers.

MAY – SIGNIFICANT FUNDING FOR INVESTIGATIONS PFR has a large team of 100+ people working on research efforts and product testing, including the development of Psa-tolerant and resistant cultivars. PFR, Zespri and KVH invest more than $11.5 million in research.

JULY – MORE ORCHARDS ARE INFECTED Around 1200 New Zealand kiwifruit orchards are infected with the virulent form Psa-V – nearly 40% of the country’s orchards.

2011 2010

2013 2012

ITALIAN KIWIFRUIT INDUSTRY DECIMATED

OCTOBER – PSA-V SPREADS IN NEW ZEALAND

MAY – NATIONAL PSA-V PEST MANAGEMENT PLAN

In 2007/08, conditions are ideal for the spread of Psa. Kiwifruit in the region of Lazio are decimated, including a New Zealand-owned orchard. Cost estimates for the Italian outbreak are €2million (NZ$3.5million).

Psa-V is now identified in 369 orchards covering 2,214 hectares.

Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy approves a National Psa-V Pest Management Plan (NPMP). The plan ensures the entire industry works together to overcome the impacts of Psa-V. Grower levies fund the NPMP. JULY – PSA BACTERIA ORIGINS An international collaboration discovers that a single source of the Psa bacterium is responsible for the recent outbreaks of Psa in New Zealand, Italy, Japan and Korea. They report that the Psa bacterium most likely has its origins in Asia. However, the Psa-V strain is a much more recent offshoot.

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FEBRUARY – PRIME MINISTER’S SCIENCE PRIZE PFR receives the 2018 Prime Minister’s Science Prize and will use the $400,000 prize to support bioprotection technologies.

JUNE – HIGH COURT RULES IN FAVOUR OF KIWIFRUIT GROWERS The New Zealand High Court rules that MAF – now known as the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) – breached its duty of care by approving a permit to import pollen products into New Zealand.

The Crown argues that growers do not have a case as studies regarding how Psa-V entered the country are inconclusive.

In July 2018 the Crown, on behalf of MPI, filed an appeal against the High Court decision.

In April 2020 the Court of Appeal agreed that the Government was responsible for the Psa-V outbreak however it is not liable for losses.

APRIL – PARTNERING WITH CHINA NOVEMBER – CROWDSOURCING KNOWLEDGE PFR scientists share kiwifruit and Psa bacterium genome sequences for global collaboration. They invite the international science community to help solve the problems facing kiwifruit growers across the world.

New Zealand scientists partner with China to identify new sources of resistance to kiwifruit pests and diseases. Research leader Dr Mirco Montefiori notes, “We have a large kiwifruit germplasm collection in New Zealand, but the diversity of kiwifruit vines in China is virtually endless.”

2015 2014

NOVEMBER - KVH WINS NATIONAL AWARD

NOVEMBER - APPLAUDED AND INDUSTRY AWARDED

KVH receives the 2018 Industry Award at the New Zealand Biosecurity Awards, recognising the contribution to the industry’s Psa recovery.

The kiwifruit industry is awarded the New Zealand Biosecurity Special Award for outstanding biosecurity commitment and leadership while always ensuring grower welfare.

2017

2019

2016

2018

MAY – BIOCONTROL MICROORGANISMS

JUNE – FROM $2.6BILLION TO $6.14BILLION

A consortium of New Zealand experts investigates biological control agents (BCAs) that can significantly resist Psa symptoms in kiwifruit vines. Two BCAs are applied to the leaves. One BCA is a rootdwelling beneficial fungus.

The kiwifruit industry continues to recover. A University of Waikato report suggests the kiwifruit industry will increase its contribution to New Zealand’s GDP from $2.16billion in 2015/16 to $6.14billion in 2030.

2021 2020

DECEMBER – LIVING WITH PSA-V KVH reports that 3,031 orchards are identified as having Psa-V. This represents 93.5% of New Zealand’s kiwifruit hectares. Growers live with Psa but have a toolbox for managing the disease.

FEBRUARY - SETTLEMENT OVER PSA The Crown and kiwifruit sector plaintiffs reach an out of court settlement to the litigation arising from the incursion.

MARCH - AREAS REMAIN PSA FREE The South Island and Far North kiwifruit growing regions remain free of Psa.

Credit: Kiwifruit Vine Health archives Credit: Science Learning Hub – Pokapū Akoranga Pūtaiao. (2018). Kiwifruit and Psa – a timeline. Retrieved from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/interactive_timeline/10-kiwifruitand-psa-a-timeline. © The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato

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GROWERS REFLECTIONS ҉ Peter West ҉ Murray Holmes ҉ Braden Hungerford ҉ Carol Franklin ҉ Colin Jenkins ҉ John Cook ҉ Ken Reekie ҉ Robbie Ellison ҉ Steve Thomas

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PETER WEST

GROUND ZERO For most of Peter West’s life, 5 November has been linked to the fizz and bang of Guy Fawkes night. He cheerfully tossed his share of firecrackers as a boy and relished a good pyrotechnic show. Later, when he managed a Te Puke orchard, it was a night for vigilance as he protected his beloved black Labrador dogs from the noise of neighbourhood fireworks.

But that calendar date now marks a far more difficult anniversary and it’s one that summons memories he wishes he didn’t carry.

At 3pm on Guy Fawkes day in 2010, Peter received a phone call confirming the orchard he cared for had a strange new bacterial infection. The news would quickly prove more explosive and vastly more harmful than any fireworks demonstration, to him personally as well as to his community and the wider kiwifruit industry.

Life as he knew it altered that spring afternoon, when he found himself at ground zero of the Psa-V incursion.

Within days of the fateful phone call, Peter was swamped by scientists and government people, industry colleagues, media and the merely curious who would drive up to Olympos orchard just to see where it all began.

PETER WEST “All hell broke loose” he says. “There were security guards on the gates, not letting people in, and everybody that went onto the orchard had to wear white protective overalls and shoe coverings. In my wildest nightmares, I didn’t think I would ever be experiencing anything like that.”

Snippets of his story were splashed on the evening television news, complete with out-of-context quotes. Strangers and people he knew called to abuse and blame him. He found himself hiding in the orchard, in tears.

Prior to that November, the easy-going former carpenter was a content man with canine companions Max and Duice, two adult children and his smart, energetic wife Gail who sometimes accused him of being too placid. He relished his job, helping to develop and manage three Te Puke orchards owned by his older brother Russell West.

Olympos orchard is named after an ancient coastal city in Turkey. Russell was visiting the city’s ruins when he spoke with Peter about buying 5.3 canopy hectares of flat land less than 10 minutes south of the sign proclaiming that Te Puke is ‘kiwifruit capital of the world’. From his side of the globe, the younger brother described a ridgetop location ideally sited for frost protection and sun, ringed by towering gum trees.

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In 1998, Peter worked on the orchard conversion from green to the sweeter, yellow-fleshed Hort 16A variety. He loved the taste of the fruit and had lavished extra attention on this particular orchard, trialling reduced spray programmes and organic fertiliser options. Production was excellent at 64,000 trays and the current crop was looking superb.

“It was going to be a really, really good year. And it was a beautiful orchard. I’d poured time and energy and heart into it, as all kiwifruit growers do. Back then, you didn’t find many of them who would just think it’s a money-making machine.”

By early December, everything was gone. The vines had been cut down, bagged and burned in a pit, leaving a wasteland of half-metre stumps and a traumatised man in their wake.

“It was devastating. The darkest moment for me was when I sat at the orchard entrance, waiting for machinery to come and decimate the orchard. It’s not just plants, it’s livelihoods. You get so involved. It was passion. It was everything. Dreams are broken.”

“Where we lived, heavy vehicles continually went by.

I considered driving out and just pulling out in front of one. But I don’t like being beaten by a thing. I’ve got determination I didn’t know I had. I learned a lot about myself over this.”

Peter traces the start of his Psa story back to autumn 2010, after he had been unexpectedly felled by a stroke. Fed up with lying on the couch, he convinced Gail to take him for a drive through the orchard. He wasn’t feeling great but something was amiss at Olympos, too.

On 19 April, he noted in his daily diary ‘male vine has died back on replacement spurhead’. His carpentry years had taught him when a thing doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t right so he phoned trusted neighbours and fellow orchardists Murray and Deborah Holmes for a second opinion.

Murray reassured him he’d seen this problem before, courtesy of overzealous summer pruning.

On 23 October, there’s another diary entry mentioning an odd speckle on the leaves at Olympos. Over the following days, he called in his client services representative at the pack-house and dropped a sample to the Hort Research base in Te Puke. Zespri also took some leaf samples away.

Finally, he asked Peter Lyford, a former Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) officer turned orchard consultant, for his opinion. The consultant was especially interested in one unusually long cane with withered, curled leaves. When touched, the fruit buds came away dead in their hands. Initially, Peter and a neighbour attributed the damage to burns from the spray from the burst hydraulic hose of a digger that had visited recently. Peter Lyford wasn’t so sure.

“He has the mind of an elephant. And I mean that in a good way. He walked up and down the orchard, muttering ‘I’ve seen it before but I haven’t seen it like this’. He had been to Italy and had seen it there.”

The consultant ordered tests and it was those results Peter West received on 5 November, with an explanation that Olympos was harbouring a “funny disease”. The next day, Peter met with Zespri staff and a Plant & Food Research scientist on the orchard. His first inkling of the seriousness of the situation came when he tried to head home; no, he was told, nothing could leave the orchard including his car.

“I’m not a panicker, I thought we’ll just see what happens. I’m in horticulture so you’ve got to expect things to go right and wrong.”

He was sworn to secrecy, though immediately broke his pledge of silence by contacting all contractors who had been on the orchard to insist they wash their sprayers and quad bikes and pruning equipment. He also called the local apiarist and asked him not to place the hives from Olympos on anyone else’s orchard. Please just do it, he begged. No, he couldn’t explain why.

Initially, like most orchardists, Peter had little understanding of Psa and its characteristics. He would later learn the orchard he managed was not the first to succumb - the disease was already established nearby but, because he was the first to raise his hand and report the issue, he found himself squarely in the spotlight. And directly in the firing line.

Once the news became public, panic and rumour spread almost as rapidly as the bacteria itself. Frightened growers phoned him to hurl wild, angry accusations. Meanwhile, he blamed himself, wondering if perhaps his natural compost experiment was to blame or he’d made some critical error.

“I was thinking oh my god, what have I done. I loved the industry, I still do, and I thought I’d ruined it. People I didn’t know asked me what the hell I was doing, they were going to lose everything. They were blaming me for losing their income.”

Others showed great empathy. He will never forget the kindness of people like Dave Buckley, whose Zespri bosses had quietly instructed to look out for the embattled orchard manager.

Dave visited frequently, spending time sitting and talking. Or pastoral care leader Ian Greaves, who listened and helped him get help from a psychologist. Or the Holmes’s next door, who would seek him out in the orchard and offer support and hugs. Even now, good friends still check on him.

In some ways, he was lucky. While he lost his job, he was less financially affected than orchard owners who were forced to sell their properties.

These days, he admits to worrying more than he used to. It is a little tougher to laugh things off. But he also knows far more about mental health and how to look after his own wellbeing. And he looks forward to the kiwifruit season, when he drives a truck and trailer unit.

“Personally, I think I’m stronger than I was. I’ve still got my sense of humour and I’ve got more determination than I thought. The industry itself has survived and is now as strong as it ever has been but we shouldn’t forget the personal and financial casualties that occurred prior to the recovery. There are many that carry the consequences of Psa to this day.”

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MURRAY HOLMES

WE’RE DEALING WITH RISK ALL THE TIME “It was horrible, a terrible time in my life. I was watching my whole life’s work going down the gurgler. What got me through? It was probably my wife and my two kids and far too much red wine.”

“I had to wear coveralls, gumboots, gloves and glasses to walk onto my own orchard. I remember one day, getting suited up, walking down the end of the rows and thinking, ‘a week ago I was standing here and mowing my orchard’.

I burst into tears.”

“It was late January when they started cutting the orchard out. That day, we went to the beach, took the whole family away for a week. But when we came home there were covered trucks coming in and out, people with chainsaws and loppers. It was just horrendous, a huge privacy invasion. They spent two or three weeks there, pulled the whole crop off first and it all disappeared out the gate in trucks.”

“Once Psa was in the orchard, it spread like wildfire. You just couldn’t stop it.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) staff weren’t completely sure of what they were doing; we had people coming in to tell us what to do who didn’t know kiwifruit grew on vines instead of trees.”

“I was going to meetings; I think I had six in one day. I just got completely fed up with meetings, got burnt out with them. No-one knew what we could do, we didn’t have Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) at that stage, everybody we went to was saying ‘I don’t know’.”

“It was the green that got cut out first. The gold block never got Psa till later on and I picked my Hort 16A that next year, in March 2011, under all sorts of protocols. For six weeks, I couldn’t even go on the orchard, couldn’t get staff in, didn’t do any pruning, so it got overgrown. But I did have income off that crop.”

“I winter pruned it the next year, laid it all down, cut out the infected vines, sprayed Hi-Cane in August. Then the vines started oozing, it was in 50 or 60% of vines. About a week later, we came in to start cutting it out and found it in every single vine.”

“We did save one hectare of green and that turned out to be one of the things that helped get us through financially. But we had to start making decisions on what we were going to do with what we were left with. We were fumbling and I made decisions that were absolutely wrong.”

“I was in Whitianga the day the news broke, helping my brother move a small building, and EastPack rang me and said ‘you’re on the front page’. Then it went absolutely ballistic. My phone started ringing.

Every newspaper, TV station, radio channel. I was kind of in a panic, trying to ring the lawyer but the phone wouldn’t stop.”

“And it built from there. We were watching the news and then crikey, that’s our house. There were cameras peering down our driveway. We had the media stacked up on the road when I went to the end of the drive to pick up the newspaper. Four satellite dishes. One News was there for one and a half days. We had instructions not to say anything, but we’d be driving out the gate, with the journos trying to stop us. My daughter, she was trying to get to school.”

“We were at ground zero. Our driveway runs down the side of Olympos and our orchard gate sign was on the front page of the Bay of Plenty Times, saying we have Psa. At that time, it wasn’t even confirmed. But we were the first green orchard to be confirmed with Psa.” 14

“In the meantime, I was ramping up my contracting business again. I didn’t want to, but my wife and I sat down and went, what are we going to do? I bought an old sprayer, employed a friend’s son. Then I bought more trucks to cart kiwifruit bins, I went to the South Island and bought a truck and rehashed it to make a fertiliser transport truck. It was our saviour; it literally gave me money to put food on the table at the time.”

“I worked and worked and worked, seven days a week. It put a lot of stress on my family, those years of struggling. I was working dawn to dusk every day and Deborah was the one at home keeping it all together. She was my rock; I couldn’t have done it without her. Our kids were teenagers, and they had enough sense to know things weren’t good, but we made quite an effort not to discuss too much detail or talk about what was happening financially in front of them.”

“People would say to me, how the hell do you smile so much? But Deborah and I made a point of not letting it get us down, we tried to look at the bright side or we would have been in tears every day. And it brought a lot of growers together, round here. Rog Bayly, my mate up the road, he turned up quite often and we used to have a lot of coffee together. Robbie Ellison was another one who’d call in all the time, talk about it. I think my friendships with those men were cemented, probably, in that time. I knew them as clients and neighbours, but we spent a lot more time together, just yacking about it, talking it through, trying to work it out.”

“I’ve been through downturns, but they weren’t as devastating as this. I bought my first orchard in 1986 so I’ve seen a few of ups and downs. In the early 90’s, when it was bad, I worked for Fruit Fed to survive. But this time, we were talking about a physical disease, not just a financial crash.”

“We still lose plants to Psa now and I think we’re dealing with risk all the time - the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, Brazilian Wilt for example. Why can we not put protocols in place as they have for COVID-19, to keep these things out? It’s going to cost but I don’t mind the cost if it saves our industry.”

“I look back on it now and it still upsets me, all the time I spent sitting at my kitchen bench with my head in my hands, thinking what the hell are we going to do, how are we going to get through this? But we kept forging forward and we’re doing quite well.”

“I’ve sold a lot of the contracting business off now, it’s just the trucking business left. The biggest thing now is we’ve got to a stage where debt isn’t such a worry and I’m thrilled with the returns and the way the industry is heading. It’s been a very long journey and now, gold is gold. I now have nine hectares of G3. And I still have that one hectare of green. I don’t know what makes me hang onto that, it’s like my lucky four-leaf clover.”

15

MURRAY HOLMES

BRADEN HUNGERFORD

BUILDING SUCCESS AND RESILIENCE

The former city dweller and his wife Rachel were in their early 30s with two preschoolers, a six-month-old baby and no family living nearby when Psa-V was discovered in their fledgling Te Puke orchard, in November 2010. At that point, their five-year-old business was still running at a loss.

Within a month of the incursion, almost half of the 26-hectare orchard had been cut out. Since then, Braden has always held a second job and regularly clocked up 70-hour working weeks, leaving Rachel to parent alone much of the time.

“She’s had to carry a heavier load, definitely” he says of his wife. “I’ve barely seen the kids for a lot of the last 10 years. That’s probably the hardest thing, the lost time with family. But we had to build back from a rough position.”

In 2005, he’d left his Wellington sales job and Rachel gave up her teaching work to move north and help convert the family dairy farm. He’d worked alongside his father to help pull out fences, ram posts, string wires and graft Hayward, Hort 16A and a smaller amount of G9. Braden took the reins and managed the property once his dad left the district, which happened 15 months after his mother died in 2006.

“We were learning as we were going and cropping was mostly small, mostly Hayward. We’d just had our first crop of gold.”

For years, Psa drove Braden Hungerford to work so many extra hours he barely saw his children while they were awake. And when he managed to snatch a few hours’ sleep himself, his dreams frequently teemed with infected kiwifruit vines.

Their plans began to unravel soon after the announcement that a new bacteria had found its way to New Zealand. An email message and photographs told growers what to look for, so Braden stepped onto the orchard and, within minutes, found leaves bearing unusual spots. He reported the discovery and waited, unaware of the turmoil that was to follow.

A few days later, people in white biosecurity suits swarmed the orchard. A cordon was strung across the driveway and politicians descended, including a helicopter appearance by then Minister of Agriculture, David Carter.

“Then we were being asked to cut our orchard off, which we’d just sort of planted. In a month, we cut down five years of hard work. We had some Hayward left standing, but I think we cut out 12 hectares.”

“We knew enough to know it’s airborne so if we didn’t cut it out, we were kind of stuffing all the neighbours as well. We felt we had a responsibility to everyone else that was downwind.”

The Hungerfords eventually received a subsidy to cover the cost of cutting out the vines and regrowing new ones but the funding covered growing costs only.

Not the mortgage or lost revenue.

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BRADEN HUNGERFORD

He can laugh now, 10 years later, about the fact he was financially worse off than friends who’d been travelling overseas for years and returned home to live on an unemployment benefit. At the time, it was no joking matter. He faced significant debt and huge uncertainty, alongside the immediate needs of a young family.

Hindsight tells him he should have cut out all the Hayward, too, and replaced it with valuable G3.

“But it was still the right call. We didn’t know if anything was going to survive. There wasn’t hope in those initial stages. Prices for land, everything dropped through the floor. When we cut out, there was no pathway. There was no ‘next’. There were no answers, no system, no support. We couldn’t go back to dairy farming because we had too much debt. Would the next vines grow and be okay? It was like culling your cows and not being allowed any new cows back on.”

Once the vines had gone, Braden wasted almost no time licking his wounds. Word reached him that a small crew was forming to help navigate the crisis and he immediately volunteered to help the informal group that would become Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH).

“I couldn’t just sit there and feel helpless and look at stumps, I needed to be able to learn a way forward so we could survive. I wanted to find solutions, that’s why I got involved.”

In the beginning, there were no defined jobs for the hastily assembled bunch that met in the cramped Zespri meeting space they dubbed ‘the war room’ to sift through available information and share any answers they could find. Braden swiftly slotted into an operations role, co-ordinating the practical response to the incursion; finding a disposal site for infected vines, organising diggers, talking to stressed growers.

“Nothing in life prepared me for this. The only thing I had going for me was that I could connect with the grower, it wasn’t like I was asking somebody to do something I hadn’t already done.”

The volunteer role became a paid one when the newly-formed KVH took him on as a contractor.

Either way, it was often a thankless task.

“You were absorbing a lot of misery. In those early days, growers were regularly calling you and abusing you on the phone. That’s because I was the one there and they were hurting. Some were really grateful, there were ones that were pretty quiet and didn’t know what to do and those ones that wanted someone to blame.”

“At the same time, we had contractors who were smelling money and some were trying to rip the system off.”

He also had to deal with the “snake oil salesmen” who were pitching improbable cure-all solutions. “Everyone called us and said we’ve got a product that will fix this.”

Looking back, he says he was close to burnout but credits a house purchase with saving his sanity. About a year after Psa hit, the couple bought a run-down old house in Papamoa and began cleaning, painting and renovating it.

“I probably didn’t even know at the time why I was doing it but it was good for us. I just needed to do something off the orchard, that wasn’t kiwifruit and wasn’t dealing with something that was dying. We could go down there and camp while we worked on it. I could work from there, we could take the kids to the beach.”

Since then, business has certainly bounced back. The home block is eight hectares larger now and the Hungerfords have another 14 hectares in various stages of development, with 60% of their holdings in G3.

But that’s not the way Braden measures success. He remembers telling fellow growers during a Psa information meeting “if your value as a person is tied to a balance sheet, you need to readjust your priorities.”

He is also certain plenty of positives flowed from those difficult years.

Neighbourhood networks were strengthened, and industry leaders proved their mettle.

“You really quickly learned who were the good buggers in the industry. You learned the stand-out people in each region.”

“I wish it hadn’t happened but, ultimately, I think Psa has been good for my family. Rachel might disagree but when you have to deal with loss, it makes you figure out what’s important, what’s not.”

“I think we’re better people out the other end of it. Less proud, less bulletproof, more resilient. We know we can start again if we have to, we’ve done it before.

We hold material things pretty lightly. And we teach our kids to work hard and stuff doesn’t matter and people are important. That the direction you’re going is more important than where you are.”

These days he sees his family more. There are four children now; daughter Georgia arrived two years into the Psa saga.

And he has returned to an old hobby to keep stress levels down. Thanks to vastly-improved kiwifruit returns, the former flight instructor bought himself a small plane about a year ago and aims to spend a couple of hours a week in the air.

Braden is well aware that, if he had maintained his original career plan and become a commercial pilot, COVID-19 would likely have put him out of work.

There is further irony, too; in some ways it was flying that brought him to kiwifruit. As a young instructor, he taught Zespri Board Chairman Bruce Cameron to fly and remembers admiring the agricultural businessman’s ability to own a plane.

“He was into orcharding and farming and I thought, that’s what I’d rather do. I like the lifestyle of a business owner.”

Nowadays though, when he’s airborne above the Bay of Plenty, Braden struggles to switch off his grower’s brain.

“I see kiwifruit land everywhere, so many places I’d love to plant kiwifruit.”

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CAROL FRANKLIN

FINDING A WAY FORWARD Opotiki orchardist Carol Franklin didn’t need Psa-V to teach her any lessons in hardship and loss.

She’d already mastered essential survival skills back in 2003, when liver cancer took her adored husband Dave and left her with 15 hectares of gold kiwifruit, a block of avocados and five children including nine-year-old twins. Despite her proven resilience, the widow had no idea how to cope with the unwelcome bacteria that cut its destructive path through all three of her Hort 16A orchards less than a decade later.

But she knew she had to try, thanks to her late husband’s instructions.

‘Never sell the kiwifruit, it’ll look after you’ he advised before succumbing to cancer at age 50, less than three months after his diagnosis.

The Franklins, who were married for 24 years, had not had an easy road to orchard ownership, either.

He was a city boy, the only child of an Aucklandbased solo mother, with a forward-thinking attitude and a natural affinity for plants. She grew up on a small dairy farm in southern Hawke’s Bay and travelled extensively before opening a successful fish and chip shop in Taranaki.

They moved to a small sheep and beef farm in Taranaki, where Dave planted thousands of trees and Carol supplemented their income growing flowers for export. Then she convinced her husband their future lay in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, where her sister and brother-in-law already owned a small kiwifruit block.

They borrowed money to buy their first orchard and almost immediately, world fruit prices collapsed.

“We ended up owing the Kiwifruit Marketing Board money. And when we first shifted to Opotiki, we lived in the smoko room of a shed with two children.”

As the family grew, they rented then bought and added rooms to an old farm cottage at Tirohanga. At one stage, though, two adults and five children were squeezed into a two-bedroom house.

Clawing their way out of debt, the couple acquired more orchard land and Dave worked to improve production.

“Dave was a great visionary. Everything he did was a year or two before anyone else. He’d be wearing Hawaiian shirts and the next year, they’d be on the catwalks.

One day he said, there’s this new yellow kiwifruit out. He got all five of the children to sit around the table and taste it. Everyone said yum. And he said, we’re going to change all the orchards to gold. It was a huge gamble and it paid off.”

That is, until Psa-V hit.

“We lost the lot, the whole lot. It was the second worst thing in my life,” Carol says, recalling the bacteria’s sweep through block after block of her orchards. It appeared in late 2011 and by mid2012 every vine had been cut out and removed, taking her income and future prospects too.

“There were lots of tears, I tell you. Just a dark, dark hole. It was dreadful, like losing a member of your family. And it was very lonely. Everyone could go home to their husband or wife at night and chew the fat. I was on my own. I’d be lying there at night time thinking, what’s going to replace it? What’s next? Where am I going? What can I plant?”

‘How am I going to do this,’ she wondered, for the second time in her life.

In the immediate aftermath of her husband’s death, Carol left orchard oversight to others – staff, friends, family and industry professionals – and focussed on her children. Once the twins were away at school, the widow took a more proactive, hands-on approach to developing the business. With help from a manager, she made decisions to cover the valuable crop, to pull out avocados and extend the Hort 16A holdings by another four hectares. Production was increasing nicely and she was enjoying life again.

The twins had one year left at college, gold kiwifruit returns were excellent and she was able to travel overseas on cycling trips. The three orchards were averaging 18,000 trays a hectare.

Then, as the summer of 2010 beckoned, news came that a bacterial invader had struck Te Puke orchards. As information emerged, fears grew. Orchardists around New Zealand began obsessively washing machinery, sterilising equipment, donning protective gear, desperately trying to keep Psa at bay. A year later, Opotiki growers realised they had lost the battle.

“We were very vigilant, looking every day, cutting out anything dead. Then all of a sudden a whole hectare would just collapse overnight. The stumps were oozing red ooze, it was just awful. It was a big hit for Opotiki. Horticulture is one of the major employers and no-one knew how to deal with it or if it was the end of the industry. The land was worth nothing more than its greenfields value.”

Carol attended meetings where possible solutions were tossed around and Te Puke growers recommended practical and mental ways to help manage the effects of Psa. She spoke with friends and pack-house support staff and turned over multiple scenarios in her head, including farming Pekin ducks. Once the G3 variety emerged as an option, she seized on it, spending more money to buy licences and employ staff to graft all three orchards.

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CAROL FRANKLIN IMAGE CREDIT JAMIE TROUGHTON, DSCRIBE MEDIA

Then she worked alongside her employees, grafting, training laterals, removing strings, tying down.

“I was right in there, I had no choice really. What was I going to do? Sit at home?”

“You work with your staff because it was very demoralising seeing everything dead and if you work with them, I think it gives them hope. Me too.

I was out there because I wanted to see it succeed.

And I was one extra hand.”

She suspects the physical toil helped still her mind and aided sleep, too.

Real hope only came when she could see some of her Te Puke colleagues, who were a year ahead in their battle, starting to pull through.

“We could look and see what was happening within the industry there. Now I’m feeling in a good space.”

Since the difficult Psa days, Carol has become a grandmother several times over. All her offspring are thriving and her youngest son is considering an orcharding career. Meanwhile, kiwifruit returns continue to exceed her expectations. In recent years, she has moved to Ohope, met a partner and acquired both a motor home and an electric bike. Plans are afoot to cycle from Ohakune to Whanganui.

Looking back, she says family support and solid friendships helped pull her through the tough times, aided by an even-keeled personality and a propensity for hard work.

“I’ve been a worker all my life and I guess I don’t know any other way.”

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COLIN JENKINS

WORKING IN A FAST LEARNING CURVE WITH LOTS OF UNKNOWNS A map on the wall of Colin Jenkins’ office charted the inevitable in rapidlygrowing splashes of colour.

As Psa-V hit one Te Puke orchard, then a cluster, then increasing numbers of properties in an everwidening radius, the Ngai Tukairangi Trust General Manager printed off a map and began tracking distances and marking the bacteria’s spread with a yellow highlighter pen. It became obvious the Matapihi orchards that he oversees were next in the firing line.

“I was watching it barrelling towards us,” he says.

“And we back onto a motorway so there was a risk of it coming in off the road, a bit of plant material blowing off the back of a vehicle or a sprayer driving past.”

Sure enough, on Friday 5 August, 2011 - exactly nine months after the first case was identified in Te Puke – Psa-V was found in a Trust-owned Hort 16A block off Matapihi Road.

“We were the first orchard in Tauranga to get it because we were close to the Te Puke end of town.

And we had just purchased a 6-hectare block on No 3 Road, so that was a real concern.”

Colin frequently spent hours a day reading reports and emails and everything he could find that might give him insight into the bacteria. He sought information from experts at pack-houses, Zespri and the emerging entity that would become Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH). He co-ordinated the local Matapihi growers’ group, which encouraged orchardists to focus on hygiene measures, consider potential control techniques and support each other. But in the end, the buck stopped with him over orchard management decisions.

“It was a fast learning curve at the beginning and it was just a pressure situation every day, having to make decisions. Yes, it was a bit lonely. I guess it was all the uncertainty. There were lots of unknowns. How were we going to control this?

What sprays to use?”

Early attempts to utilise copper were unsuccessful; the overly-concentrated formula caused vine damage.

“Everybody was trying to tell us what to do and no-one really knew. The overriding desire was to do something and there’d be these people coming around in white utes, trying to sell us products, saying ‘this will help you fight Psa’. But there wasn’t the evidence it would. There were a lot of growers who purchased stuff in a panic but I’m probably a bit more conservative. With a big operation, you want to know something works first or you make big mistakes.”

And Ngai Tukairangi Trust is undoubtedly a significant player in the industry, with 117 hectares of kiwifruit including the Matapihi landholdings, a small orchard in Te Puke, more orchards in the Hawke’s Bay and ongoing expansion plans.

Colin has held his management role for more than 30 years, overseeing orchard operations for the Trust’s 1,600 or so owners and its seven elected Board members. The son of market gardeners, he collected a horticultural science degree before taking a fisheries advisory job that brought him to Tauranga and introduced him to the kiwifruit industry. He was a single man when he took the Operations Manager role for Ngai Tukairangi Trust and now has the top job, a wife and seven children who were all raised on the orchard at Matapihi.

“It’s just been a great place to work. Being a large operation, it gives lots of variety, networking with people, just a really interesting job.”

Back in 2011, just three weeks after discovering the distinctive rusty red ooze on a few vines in one of the Matapihi blocks, Colin and the trustees made a big call.

“I thought, the longer we continued to allow Psa on our orchard, it was going to get worse. It was compromising everything. So we decided to cut all the vines out of that particular orchard.

With the rest of the vines in the other blocks, we cropped for that season, then we cut out all the Hort 16A and grafted everything over to G3. We got away to a flying start.”

The Trust had been trialling the new gold fruit before Psa struck and had opted to graft one area over to this variety the previous year.

“So we could cut out our Hort 16A and still have some gold in production. We could see the G3 was more tolerant. And we had green here as well. We had some Psa in the green but it was more leaf spotting, not the oozing, and that made us hold onto the green. But we did convert some more to G3 the following year. I could see that, for people who could get back into production as soon as possible, they would make a lot of money. And we spent a lot doing it really well, a lot of attention to detail.”

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“That’s about managing newly-grafted young vines, really trying to push growth as far as possible, to fill the canopy and get back into production. We were prepared to be innovative.”

The strategy paid off.

To be fair, the Trust was in a strong position heading into the Psa era, with no debt and a sound record of collecting premium prices from early production of Hayward fruit. The green blocks provided welcome fall-back income when Hort 16A failed. At the same time, fruit from the already-producing G3 block was delivering excellent returns.

“Our situation was so different to a lot of other growers who had debt or who were totally Hort 16A. And we had the resources, we didn’t have to borrow any money to fast track that conversion.”

Nowadays, the Trust has only 12 hectares of green left on its Matapihi/Te Puke blocks. Most of the rest is gold, with small trial blocks of other varieties frequently in the mix. Colin and the Trust are increasingly interested in soil health and questioning spray regimes. One of their Bay of Plenty orchards will be converted to organic production, while another property in Hawke’s Bay is in transition.

Otherwise, there are no plans to change crops.

“One of the reasons we’re in kiwifruit is to try to keep housing out of Matapihi. This is prime development land but it’s still important to the local Māori community that this land stays rural and it doesn’t go into housing. Kiwifruit has been a game changer for some Māori communities.

It’s given employment opportunities and a good return on the land. There’s still optimism in the industry and the Trust is looking at other opportunities, though it’s hard to look at anything else when kiwifruit is doing so well.”

He says dividends and grants for education, sporting or community projects ensure that plenty of money - $2million last year - is pumped back into owners’ pockets and the local community.

COLIN JENKINS

“While I’m not sure we paid a dividend during Psa, it certainly affected us. But we were still making a profit through that Psa period. And since then, we’ve gone from strength to strength.”

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JOHN COOK

WE’VE RECOVERED, BUT WE STILL LOOK OVER OUR SHOULDER

“Jenny’s mum was first priority. But the next day, we had white suited people crawling all over our orchard, identifying and pointing out where the Psa was.

By then, the Hort 16A was already wilting. In the five days we’d been away, it had just come on so quickly.”

“We were thinking we’d been dealt such bad hands in recent times, could it get any bloody worse? We were under no illusions; we knew how serious it was.

We’d known about Psa for some time. We were following what was going on in Italy and we all thought damn, we don’t want this to come to New Zealand.

By April 2011, it was obvious that first promising Hort 16A crop would not be picked and packed for sale. Instead, the fruit was thrown into bins and carted away to be buried. All the vines were cut out and swept into another hole and burnt and buried, in an attempt to halt the spread of Psa-V. In the early days, he also fretted about their other two mixed green and gold orchards, wondering whether they would also succumb to the infection. The other gold blocks did fall, though the green survived. John did not waste time feeling sorry for himself though. He had already been working on a strategic plan, considering, and then discounting, alternatives for the land.

“Can we grow something else here? Can we sell this? But there’s bugger all you can do with these small blocks of land and that’s the risk we take when we grow kiwifruit. We looked at passionfruit, feijoas. We looked at avocados, tamarillos.

Then we started looking around the North Island and we found all those industries don’t have a protective marketing organisation like Zespri and we found people we spoke to were steering us away from growing the same crop because we could easily dilute their market opportunity. Eventually, we came back to kiwifruit.”

In the meantime, he raised his hand to gather together growers from the worstaffected area.

In spring 2010, John Cook could feel his natural optimism returning after a tough winter.

Six months earlier, the Te Puke kiwifruit grower and his wife Jenny had bought an orchard in an ideal, frost-free zone off Waimea Drive. Within hours of them finalising the deal, a disastrous hailstorm struck the property. The white carnage, which severely damaged vines and fruit on the Cook’s new 5-hectare property, was deemed one of the heaviest hail events in the industry’s history and it hit a week before harvest.

Undeterred, John forged ahead with converting the bulk of the orchard from green to the promising new Hort 16A cultivar a couple of months later.

Unfortunately, the property lay less than a kilometre from Olympos orchard, where Psa-V was first identified.

He and Jenny were in Christchurch the day the call came, confirming their block was infected. It was 19 November, 2010 - the same day 29 men died in the Pike River mining disaster and Jenny had also received a phone call, to say her mother was seriously ill. So, John abandoned his Institute of Directors New Zealand meeting and, within hours, they were on a plane home.

“Zespri and the government set up a 1km radius around ground zero and called that a priority zone. They believed, at that time, if you basically nuked the vines inside that radius, you would stop Psa dead. They asked every grower in the zone to completely destroy their vines and the affected growers would be reimbursed in some way. While some growers refused to comply with the destruction orders, most did. Those who continued to grow Hort 16A kept reinfecting nearby vines, which unintentionally affected their neighbours for several more years.”

“I felt somebody needed to step up. I formed and chaired an organisation called the Priority Zone Action Group and we became the organisation Zespri, Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) and Hort Research were dealing with. Later on, management of the infection shifted to postharvest operators alongside KVH and each one of the committee members was then able to focus on their own orchard recovery. This clearly demonstrates the strength of this collaborative industry.”

“But for a considerable period of time, the priority zone growers were being treated as guinea pigs. They were trying a whole range of sensible and not so sensible treatments, including some really wacky stuff. It was certainly a divisive time.”

22

He recalls the long and sometimes bewildering list of protocols growers and contractors had to follow when working in the affected area. On top of precautions involving machinery and protective equipment, they were all directed to change clothing every day. Sikh staff were asked to remove turbans, place them on a cover on the ground and shake them to remove any plant material before returning the garments on their heads.

John says he was fortunate to live in Pukehina at the time. “The one saving grace was I could go home to the beachfront and look at the sea instead of looking at dying vines. The guys around me in the priority zone who were living on their orchards and looking at it day after day, their mental health was just deteriorating. It put me in a position to help them. I felt I needed to. I was aware of two growers that were at risk of hurting themselves, such was the mental and physical stress they were experiencing.”

“And the act of taking leadership and helping others helped me. It gave me a focus away from what was there in front of me and an insight into what others were doing, where there was a chance of success, a chance of recovery. Part of it was being able to talk to each other about it, find out where help was coming from, who was giving us the best advice.”

John is certain two factors prepared him to take the Chairman’s mantle; his own earlier experiences with hardship and previous participation in a leadership programme.

The orchardist has been involved with kiwifruit for almost half a century. His family planted a block of kiwifruit on their dairy land in the early 1970’s and he and Jenny bought their first orchard in 1990. But he was a sheep farmer with a young family when drought struck the Te Puke area in 1983. The weather event decimated his animals and livelihood, so John found work in a wharfside kiwifruit coolstore to bring in desperately-needed income. He managed another coolstore in Mount Maunganui for three years, then went on to work for a kiwifruit packaging company.

He is adamant those hard years granted him the resilience he needed to confront Psa-V, which in turn helped him stare down the uncertainties that COVID-19 created in 2020. However, he says it was a 1995 Kellogg Rural Leadership course that armed him with the skills needed to form and chair the action group.

“I learned how to understand other people’s challenges, not only in farming but in holding their community together. Part of the training I had was to show your vulnerability and be comfortable with it. For me, one of the most defining moments was seeing Ian Greaves demonstrating the kind of humanity you’d rarely see in people. Something like Psa, it shows human strength and compassion.

That’s Ian.”

JOHN COOK John says he’s been heavily involved in leadership roles since. One of his current responsibilities involves working with a Maori-owned trust at Maketu, providing mentorship in both kiwifruit growing and governance.

“It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life, seeing people take pleasure out of being able to produce a crop of fruit that is going to provide resources for future generations. I love it.”

Despite the difficulties Psa-V wrought, John counts himself as fortunate because he was able to successfully access a small portion of the $50million fund created to help growers who had cut out their vines. His share of the fund – which subsequently ran dry - helped meet the costs of grafting in the new G3 gold variety in July 2011. However, it was four long years, with a couple of false starts, before the Cooks were able to pack a viable crop. While the canopy was slow to establish because the vines were so severely affected by Psa, he sees luck in that, too.

“The irony is, we had an agreement to pay off our G3 licence over three years once we were in production. The delays in getting to that point meant that we paid the last of our $8,000 per hectare fee in 2018. So, the year we made our last payment for that licence, we and any industry newcomers were paying $250,000 per hectare to be able to grow the same fruit.”

Since harvesting that first G3 fruit, John has relished seeing volumes increase and he has continued converting green blocks to gold. He has also embarked on a new syndicated venture, investing in greenfield developments for Rockit apples in the Hawke’s Bay and G3 kiwifruit in Pongakawa.

“Why keep going? We’re suckers. I look with a sense of optimism and confidence at my partners in these developments. They’re the same age as me, 72 or 73, and have all had similar experiences. Our kids say we’re mad, but I think it’s in our nature to keep doing stuff. I love this industry, we love horticulture. I like to be able to get out of bed and have something to do.”

“I guess once you get momentum with recovery, you want to keep that momentum going. We have recovered financially from Psa and as much as we’re happy with the progress we’ve made, we still look over our shoulder, we’re still mindful this is a high-risk industry.

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KEN REEKIE

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE Three days before an invasive bacteria became national news, Ken Reekie was mulling over the purchase of his fourth orchard. When his bank phoned to confirm the $2million sale had gone through, he couldn’t help considering the scale of the debt he’d shouldered and wondering whether he’d done the right thing.

But the long-time grower was pleased, too. His latest acquisition included almost seven hectares of green and about half a hectare of the new G3 gold on prime growing land in Brown Road, Te Puke. And he saw a bright future for the industry.

By Monday night, he was feeling considerably less buoyant as his phone, email and television buzzed with news of the Psa-V incursion.

However, Ken is not a man to fly into a flap or suffer severe buyer’s remorse.

“I try and keep my head,” he says. “I just thought, oh well, it’s too late now. I can’t get out of it, I’ve just got to farm through it.”

Ken was 13 when he found his first job beneath the vines more than half a century ago. The schoolboy rode his pushbike from town to work that winter in 1967, picking the little-known fruit on a corner of Peter McLoughlin’s farm up No 3 Road in Te Puke.

“It was grown like grapes then, with no pergola. All the varieties were mixed. We picked into 40-pound boxes and then at about 1pm they’d come round and start picking them up, like hay.”

The August holiday job led to more work, which in turn led him to abandon his plan to become a bricklayer and instead work for Mr McLoughlin, when he left school at age 16. By 24, he owned a share in a small farm and had earmarked one corner of it for kiwifruit.

He also spent 11 seasons working for a Californian grower who would fly him to the United States each year, primarily running the pack-house night shift.

When Psa-V hit, two of his four orchards were solely Hort 16A and the all-green home orchard was just across the gulley from the spot where the bacteria was first identified. By the following winter, all the gold was gone.

He also had an orchard management and contract picking company, which meant he was cutting out vines on other properties, too.

“One of the ones we manage had to have five hectares removed. It had got into the Hort 16A rootstock and it looked like tomato sauce oozing from the outer bark and continuing into dieback.”

“The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) hired my picking machinery to help with the removal of cut-out vines in the first affected orchard. It was like something out of a James Bond movie with all the people wearing masks, suits, and glasses. You had to leave your diesel container outside the orchard, wipe the handles of everything and spray tyres. We had a pump and detergent and washed all the forklifts and tractors before we left the orchard. We washed our cars and our hands. It added hours to the day.”

“At the end of the 2011 harvest season, we were asked to help growers in Opotiki finish their picking which had been delayed by weather and the need for sterilising equipment. We took our forklifts and tractors and washing machines and lived in Opotiki for nearly two weeks. We took 40 pickers and picked four or five thousand bins.”

Yet he remains philosophical about the effect Psa-V had on his life. Not long before the virus hit, Ken learned some valuable, timely lessons courtesy of a Dale Carnegie course hosted by post-harvest company EastPack.

“It taught me challenges will arise from time to time in life but to take the attitude of ‘what is the worst that can happen’?”

“We were all a bit wound up but there’s not a lot you can do about some things and I’m not a big stresser. I’m just happy to be living. I probably took the attitude that everybody’s going to be on the bus, it was going to affect all of us.

It’s not like your mate having a crisis on his own. With Psa, we all had the crisis and it brought the industry together. It’s like anything in life, when the chips are down everyone works together. In a flood, you might not like Mrs Stevens down the road but everybody’s still there with sandbags.”

He was impressed by the mental wellbeing work that Ian Greaves oversaw and the information-sharing at field days around Te Puke.

He also remembers there being various management tools and possible solutions discussed including high doses of copper and what he calls ‘concoctions and witches brews’, potential cures never found to conclusively work.

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KEN REEKIE

In many ways, he has not skipped a beat since. There have been several new orchard purchases in the intervening years, alongside his partner Jo Bibby.

Both his children are now involved in the family kiwifruit business and industry forecasts are excellent.

“It’s stunning. Now, I would say things are almost too good. The planting at present is daunting with hundreds of hectares being developed. It’s like when you’re having a party and having a helluva good time, it’s awesome, but you’re wondering when you’re going to have a hangover. I’m not taking anything for granted.”

On the other hand, Psa-V reinforced one important lesson for him.

“You have to enjoy life when you can. It is a life journey and Psa has been a part of it.”

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ROBBIE ELLISON

KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY

“The next morning, I was driving to work and the phone goes. It was a Katikati grower and he says ‘Psa’s in New Zealand’. That’s the first thing he said. Not hello.

I know exactly where I was at the time, halfway along the swamp road between Te Puke and Welcome Bay. I thought, ‘bloody hell’.”

Robbie drove straight to Trevelyans’ pack-house and quizzed the first person he found. Where is this Psa thing, he wanted to know. Is it in Kerikeri? Gisborne?

The reply was a hammer blow; the infected property lay 200m from two of the Ellison’s four Te Puke orchards.

By Wednesday, son Sam had found strange little angular spots on Hort 16A leaves at their Brown Road place, downwind of Olympos orchard. Within days, the spotting had spread through numerous male plants and some of the females.

While there were plenty of unanswered questions, from the outset Robbie was in no doubt the issue was serious. Craig Thompson, now at Zespri, was a family friend and the two men had spoken about the devastation Psa was causing in Italy, where Craig had lived and worked. Robbie expected things were going to get tough for gold growers. In his case, 30% of his holdings were Hort 16A. Sure enough, Robbie and Sam’s suspicions were quickly confirmed; an inspection revealed one gold block at Brown Road looked okay but the second was certainly infected. The orchard stood directly in the path of the prevailing wind.

Several moments from the Psa-V saga stand like vivid mental photographs in Robbie Ellison’s memory.

The first occurred about 8pm on Sunday night, 7 November, two days after the orchardist and his wife Karen returned from a European holiday.

While overseas, their plans to visit Italian kiwifruit orchards were curtailed by the rampant spread of a bacterial infection that was creating havoc within the industry.

Robbie was glad to be home and pleased to see healthy vines as he spent the weekend catching up on spraying. The orchardist wasn’t thinking about Psa-V though, he had succession planning on his mind. He wondered how he might step back further from involvement in 18 hectares of kiwifruit and perhaps begin to divvy up ownership of four Te Puke properties amongst the couple’s three sons Trent, Scott and Sam. Two were already working in the business full time, while Scotty divided his seasons between international skifield work and kiwifruit.

Light was fading as Robbie drove past the Zespri building that Sunday evening, en route to his Mount Maunganui house. But he recognised the two figures standing, talking earnestly outside the marketing co-operative’s head office. What on earth, he wondered with some trepidation, were New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI) Chair Peter Ombler and Zespri Chief Executive Lain Jager doing there at that time of night?

“You just know something big is going down” Robbie says of this thinking back then.

What’s more, symptoms had also appeared on the first-year canopy along the front block of the Ellisons’ Red Fox orchard, on Te Matai Road.

Several months of uncertainty followed before instruction came in February 2011 to cut down the problematic Te Matai Road vines, below the graft, to knee height.

The Brown Road place had a stay of execution. For 10 labour-intensive months, the family and their staff battled to save the vines, harvesting a crop, embarking on winter pruning and constantly cutting out any leaders that showed signs of dieback or ooze.

“That was a big mistake, it was obvious as soon as we got to bud burst, and we ended up cutting it off in September anyway. We should have taken the crop off and cut it off straight away but we weren’t sure.”

Sons Trent and Sam wielded chainsaws to bring down the vines. Then, just as they were finishing, they walked into the next block and found 22 of the 23 vines showing symptoms. So they kept cutting until all 1.1 hectares of gold had gone.

Robbie describes the first tell-tale cankers he saw, like pus-filled wounds dripping with red exudate. In those days, the “horrible” sound of chainsaws roared through his place and on his neighbours’ orchards. Road frontages were frequently pocked with piles of vine-filled plastic bags along orchard frontages.

It was an awful time, he says, and the uncertainty was far from over. Would they lose the remaining gold block at Te Matai Road the following season? How long before Psa hit their other two properties? What about the green? He held grave fears for the remaining 70% of his crop and wondered, could he and his family lose everything?

“There was a point when I thought hell, we could lose all this. I might not have anything to transfer to my sons.”

On Red Fox orchard, the green was saved from destruction by a last-minute policy change. A contractor was lined up to cull the vines on the Monday morning until an announcement on the previous Friday afternoon deemed the infected green could stay. Those particular vines produced fruit for another decade and were only recently cut to make way for Zespri Red.

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He says the initial scramble for information and guidance was difficult for everyone and it became obvious that no-one was properly prepared for a horticultural biosecurity incursion.

“We had meat inspectors inspecting our orchards,” he says, of the early response from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF).

“In those first six months, you could - and some growers did - feel some resentment towards people higher up in industry. In their defence, we had never come up against something like this. It was difficult for decision makers. It was hard for Zespri, being the marketing arm.”

“We had some real holes in our on-orchard biosecurity.” He is certain the formation of Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) has been key to managing the initial Psa crisis and ongoing issues with the bacteria, as well as addressing future threats such as Brown Marmorated Stink Bug and Queensland Fruit Fly. “The industry is without doubt better set up, we’ve got a better of chance handling these things well now. Once Psa was under control, so to speak, there was some question about the need for an organisation like KVH. But clearly there is very much still a role for them.”

“In my mind we will have future biosecurity breaches and we will need to handle those with a coordinated approach.”

ROBBIE ELLISON Robbie Ellison is a natural optimist who looks for silver linings, like the resilience learned and the fact that plummeting orchard prices allowed son Trent to buy into the market at a great price.

But he does not minimise the extent of the crisis.

“In our community, it wasn’t just us growers that were worried, it was our orchard employees, our pack-house employees and the wider community because Te Puke is quite dependent on the kiwifruit industry.”

Robbie is adamant that getting away from the orchard is the key to maintaining decent mental health. It’s a lesson the orchardist has taken to heart himself and one his sons instinctively knew to follow during the Psa outbreak. He repeated the same message to others who were struggling to cope with the financial uncertainty and devastation inflicted by the bacteria.

In his case, he claims fishing and a daily café ritual have helped him deal with adversity and says the act of offering help to others hasn’t hurt, either. Robbie was among a small team who travelled to other kiwifruit regions, to speak at grower support meetings. Avoid blaming others and focus energy on dealing with the task at hand, he advised. And make mental wellbeing a priority.

Forty years in horticulture and some brutally bad seasons have taught Robbie how to withstand knocks. He remains philosophical about future threats, including the affects COVID-19 may have on his business.

“At the moment we’re looking good but it’s an uncertain world. That’s part and parcel of being a grower. We face uncertainty. Are we going to get through without a frost or hailstorm? How is COVID-19 going to affect demand for our fruit, going forward?”

“Since Psa, this orchard has been hailed twice in consecutive seasons” he says, nodding his chin beyond the rows of Zespri Red that form part of his Red Fox orchard. “Both times it cost quite a bit of crop but that’s the sort of thing that can happen when you’re a grower and you’ve just got to put your head down.

You learn skills to be able to cope with this stuff, actually being aware of your mental health, getting off the orchard. It’s not the fact that things happen, it’s how you deal with them that matters.”

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STEVE THOMAS

A PSA-FREE FRAME OF MIND

“There was a lot of talk and a lot of worry among growers that should it get here it would affect us worse than other regions because we are a lot colder.

Conditions here are similar to Italy in winter and spring. If we get a cold snap or hard frosts during sap flow it can cause the canes to split, opening them up to the disease.”

“Local consultant, Steve Sparks of AgFirst gave us a heads up about Psa-V six to seven months earlier after he had been to Italy and seen how devastating the disease was there. He said we don’t want it in this country as some growers would not be able to grow kiwifruit on their orchards again. The next thing you know, it’s here.”

Many of the measures Nelson growers had in place to tackle European apple canker quickly became standard for the kiwifruit industry in its bid to slow the spread of Psa-V. “We had struggled to find a cure for European canker but found the best approach was to remove the inoculant by cutting out infected wood, treating cuts, regular spraying of fungicides and coppers and cleaning pruning tools, in effect what became Psa-V 101.”

KVH Regional Co-ordinator at the time was Waimea grower Phil Jones. Just over two years ago he handed the role to Steve. “He still mentors me through any hairy issues, but there aren’t many now.”

If Psa-V had reached Riwaka 10 years ago, it could have spelt the end for the 154-year-old Thomas family horticultural business.

“In 2010 we were battling European canker disease which badly affected our apples,” says Steve Thomas, Thomas Bros Ltd Kiwifruit Manager.

“We were worried that if the two diseases, European canker and Psa-V coincided with each other it would have crippled our business, but thankfully it didn’t go that way,” says Steve who, in 2020 is also a Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) Regional Co-ordinator.

Psa-V didn’t reach the South Island thanks to strict biosecurity and border controls implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and Zespri shortly after the disease was discovered on a Te Puke orchard in November 2010.

Ten years on, the Thomas family business grows 40 hectares of Hayward green (some vines first planted in 1976); 27 hectares of G3 gold plus 70 of apples and 2.5 hectares of cherries on land in Dehra Doon Road Riwaka which has been owned by the family since 1856.

“Instead of being destroyed by Psa-V, our business has grown, but there were real concerns in 2010 for us and all kiwifruit growers in the region about what the impacts could be.”

At the time Steve, then in his early 20s, was a relative newcomer to both the industry and the family business but he was well aware of the anxiety that news of Psa-V created.

The biggest risks are from orchard machinery and equipment entering the South Island. Pollen and budwood are prohibited from entry.

“Vigilance remains vital. It got us through 10 years without the disease arriving. We still make sure any orchard gear coming into the region is cleaned and sanitised before it leaves the North Island and cleaned again when it arrives here.”

Growers and manufacturers of orchard equipment inform KVH of any machinery or orchard vehicles they are sending south. After steam cleaning and sanitising, all equipment is photographed and images sent by KVH to Steve.

“I inspect the equipment when it arrives and photograph it to check for any discrepancies between the original photos and mine.”

“Kiwifruit growers are well versed in the legal and biosecurity risks of moving tractors and machinery to Exclusion zones and there are hefty penalties for any kiwifruit grower who knowingly sells equipment into Exclusion regions and does not go through the correct processes.”

The protocols extend even to brand new equipment. “Recently a new pollen applicator arrived here, straight from the factory. It was sanitised before it was put on the truck and sanitised again when it got here. The risk was really low that it could carry Psa-V but it was from the Bay of Plenty and had to go through the KVH procedures to give us all peace of mind.”

Another risk is from contract pruning gangs or orchard staff moving from the North Island to work on Nelson orchards. “One of the first questions we ask as part of the induction process is if staff have worked on other orchards and we supply their tools rather than let them use their own.”

Steve even imposes biosecurity protocols on himself. “Whenever I return from visiting orchards around Te Puke, I clean my footwear and throw all my clothes in the wash.”

The conditions, including cold temperatures and heavy soils which make the Nelson growing region potentially vulnerable to Psa-V infections remain today.

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“Riwaka soils are renowned for being heavy, swampy and poor draining. This leads to water sitting in machinery wheel ruts which can cause stress and lower the immune system of plants nearby. We are working to improve drainage and the plant health in our apple and kiwifruit orchards.”

The region’s orchards do occasionally suffer from a form of Psa (Psa-LV), which can cause leaf spotting and an orange exudate but does not result in vine death. When leaf spotting occurs, tests are done but so far, they have come back negative for Psa-V.

STEVE THOMAS “Because we are an Exclusion region and seen as free of Psa-V, we supply a lot of budwood for nurseries and Zespri. Because of that a huge percentage of our gold orchards are regularly leaf tested by default to ensure the budwood is free of disease. I imagine if Psa-V was to be found here it would be caught in the very early stages.”

A decade on from the first Psa-V outbreak, the region’s growers remain strong in their resolve to keep it and other pests and diseases out.

“We are doing all we can to protect our region. Fortunately, we are a long way geographically from Psa-V infected orchards and it would need to be a pretty horrible weather event to blow an infected leaf all the way down here.”

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30

PASTORAL CARE REFLECTIONS ҉ Ian Greaves

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IAN GREAVES

IAN GREAVES

TALKING THE TALK Talking about Psa can have a physical effect on Ian Greaves. Even now, years later, he might involuntarily chew his fingernails or find he is shaking a little when recalling the human toll of the bacterial outbreak.

For Ian, those memories include rescuing people from the brink of suicide, answering calls from concerned neighbours and making urgent dashes to counsel and console. At meeting after meeting he faced people who were traumatised, frightened, angry, and bewildered and he tried to give them survival tools and hope.

Ian realised early that the fallout from Psa would be serious and immediately raised his hand to help. He started out working on a practical task, liaising with nurseries to destroy all kiwifruit plant stocks. Within months, he’d been co-opted to create and help deliver a pastoral care response and was eventually named Psa National Recovery Co-ordinator for New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI).

Well before job titles were handed out and formal plans in place, Ian made a promise to himself and his colleagues; there would be no lives lost if he could avoid it. In the years since, he has been publicly hailed as a lifesaver and a hero. His suicide prevention efforts and mental health advocacy earned him a Kiwibank Local Hero award in 2013. Major industry awards followed in 2015 and 2020, recognising his outstanding, inspiring leadership and the fact that his intervention methods saved lives.

But it was a spate of deaths decades earlier, and one death in particular, that sparked his determination to help the desperate.

Ian’s kiwifruit involvement spans four decades in assorted growing, investing, post-harvest, regulatory and leadership roles. By the time grower returns plummeted in the late 1980’s, he was already well immersed in the industry, with a horticultural science degree under his belt and a share in his first orchard. The 27-year-old was working for Wrightson Horticulture as a kiwifruit export representative when his funeral director friend began encountering several Te Puke suicides. A volunteer ambulance driver work colleague was reporting the same thing.

Then, one evening, a grower he knew phoned to ask when the next payment was due. Ian told him there wouldn’t be one. That night, the man killed himself.

“I was one of the last people who spoke to him,” Ian says. “That affected me. It was such a waste.”

Giving back Ian had just turned 50 when the Psa outbreak occurred and was preparing to dial back his industry involvement to focus on building a new home and establishing gardens on a piece of land overlooking Tauranga Harbour.

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“I’d decided I would stop working and give myself much more to my other passions, India mission work, philanthropy, and generally giving back.”

He gave alright. Just not in the intended direction.

NZKGI and the industry response team understood a pastoral care response needed to sit alongside the financial and operational ones. Ian was shouldertapped for the job.

“I said, we’ll have a goal of no suicides. I was counselled there would be some and I had to prepare myself for it. But our goal was none. Full stop. After all, who can you choose?”

The house project was placed on hold while he worked out what to do, then got on with doing it.

He had no counselling experience, no resource kits, no formal plan and his colleagues had to google the term ‘grief cycle’. But he knew who to co-opt and where to look for answers and was armed with compassion and a willingness to talk about anything. Not to mention a deep understanding of the industry and a longstanding interest in people.

“I’m a plant person,” the dedicated gardener says.

“I love plants and I love people. Anyone who’s met me knows people and plants spin my wheels. I have a natural inclination to give and to serve.”

So he called on experts and tapped into existing networks; emergency services specialists, doctors, church and rural support groups. Farmlands sponsored two evenings with author and psychologist Nigel Latta that each attracted about 700 people. A clinical psychologist was brought in, along with a psychology student who ran suicide prevention training seminars. Ian learned strategies alongside other volunteers; how to stay with an atrisk person, how to talk with them, which questions to ask, how to seek medical help and spend time with them while they calmed.

“The first thing I did, I had this little slip of paper I carried in my pocket that had 0800 emergency numbers; rural support, Te Puke Medical Centre, local churches. I was just slipping these quietly to people, below the radar.”

Public meetings were held in town or church halls and citizen clubs, initially around Te Puke then in other kiwifruit growing areas in the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Coromandel, Northland and elsewhere.

He found younger growers were generally more receptive to wellbeing discussions than their older counterparts. When asked to raise their hands if they felt stressed – Ian always raised his own hand first – he would sometimes see older men insisting that younger ones keep their arms down.

“For some people, it really took the ground away. You risked losing your home, your job, your income, your future, your retirement, everything.”

Starting the discussion “There was no profile for mental health in the kiwifruit industry, we had to normalise the conversation. Statistically, it’s the baby boomers, the older white males that are the most successful group at suicide. The older farmers, they know about the life and death of an animal and they are the most private when it comes to emotions and mental health. They don’t have the words for it.”

“It’s like your grandparents talking about sex or politics, they just didn’t do it.

I had to try and get these guys to know it was alright to even mention it, to ask for help, to go to the doctor.”

When he turned to the dairy industry’s crisis response team for guidance, he discovered planning addressed the physical practicalities surrounding natural disasters and biosecurity incursions, but they had no mental health resources.

So he created his own resource pack.

Ian estimates he personally handed out 1200 of these packs. They were given out alongside verbal advice to watch for specific warning signs, to eat and sleep well and to stay active.

Ian says he saw the best and worst of humanity during the crisis.

“There was horrible finger pointing, apportioning blame. That’s part of the grief cycle but blame is horrible. And there was selfishness, that was the worst. But on the flip side, there was total personal sacrifice. Many individuals stood up and would have done anything for anyone. They gave their time, they visited people.”

“Erin Burt, the receptionist at the dentist’s office, she established a monthly women’s dinner because it got women off the orchard and out of the house, to a place that was neutral, where they could think and talk about something else.”

An event hosted by the Rural Women New Zealand was expected to draw 20 or 30 women but 130 turned up.

“The caring community knew where they were meant to be and they went there, people just dropped into position.”

Some of those people made a point of checking on Ian’s welfare, too. He credits his own mental welfare with some strong, longstanding friendships and family support, his Christian faith and a dogged determination.

“I was at the limit of my capacity and there were a number of times I wished I wasn’t in it. It was desperately hard work. It was not an enjoyable stage of my life and not one I look back on with great joy. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

I’m thrilled to have played my part and there is no question we saved lives.”

Back home in Bethlehem, the garden is maturing and blossoming, and Ian still retains shares in a couple of orchards. He watches out for his neighbours and continues to check in on friends and business contacts if he spots signs of a personal crisis. A friend’s son, who suffers from depression, periodically stays for days at a time. And he continues to support some orchardists, as required.

“It’s not a job, it never was a job. This is a lifelong commitment.”

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POST-HARVEST REFLECTIONS ҉ Andrew Dawson ҉ Debbie Robinson ҉ Karen Roche ҉ Linda Peacock ҉ Neale Cameron ҉ Rod Fry ҉ Stu Weston

35

ANDREW DAWSON

I LEARNED RESILIENCE. TO KEEP FIGHTING AND PUSHING ANDREW DAWSON

Less than a year after buying his first orchard, Andrew Dawson began calling old friends to quietly hunt for alternative jobs.

In early 2011, the future did not look bright for the 32-year-old post-harvest Grower Relationship Manager who worked for the family company – his parents owned Aongatete Coolstores south of Katikati – and faced serious fallout from Psa-V. He was concerned about his own finances courtesy of the new 1-hectare orchard, he feared for the family business and he worried the wider industry was headed for disaster.

“It was a bit sort of scary, personally,” he says. “Just with having a bit of debt and those uncertainties. What would Psa mean both for my job and then for paying a mortgage? There was a bit of hysteria, a bit of panic, people thinking the world’s collapsing. I remember seeing it on maps every time we would go to a meeting, a red wave of it expanding from ground zero out. I used to hope there were no easterlies that would blow it here.”

He resigned himself to the possibility of switching industries, reasoning it would be better for the family if he was off the company payroll, given the prospect of diminishing returns. He and his Aongatete colleagues looked after growers as far afield as Opotiki and Auckland and the company owned four small orchards in the Katikati area, planted in a mix of Hayward, Hort 16A and G3. The way Andrew saw it, every aspect of the business was at risk.

“I thought, my parents have worked so hard only for it to come crashing down.

But I didn’t see them panicking. I think they thought ‘well, it’s just part of life’.

Dad has a science background and tries to look at things practically and calmly.”

So their son tried to do the same, even after Psa-V landed closer to home.

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“It was a crazy sort of journey,” he says of the years following February 2010, when he took a punt and borrowed money to buy his first orchard off Matahui Road. The ambitious young grower was keen to put theory into practice, so he immediately began converting successive blocks of Hayward over to G3. It was a risky move, but he’d been eyeing the new gold variety in trial orchards around the district and was excited by what he saw; yields were good, the fruit was a nice size and shape.

After moving on site, he devoted after work and weekend hours to developing the property he dubbed ‘One Rung’, anticipating it marked his first step on the ladder of ongoing orchard ownership and expansion. Then Psa-V was detected across town, in Te Puke.

At work, he found grower response was mixed – some panicked, some yelled at him, others were philosophical – and the bacteria’s affects were also patchy. Growers with families or larger mortgages were forced to find extra work off the orchard, while others sailed through relatively unscathed.

“It was very uneven in its effect. I suppose it’s a bit like life; it’s not so fair all the time. It was tough to see people struggling. I knew people who had to sell up. I was seeing a lot of stress and that leads to anger and neighbours fighting.”

“My role was to keep growers informed so I was trying to decipher all the latest information and discuss that with them. The lucky thing for me and the business I worked for, I suppose, was we weren’t so exposed in Katikati. Te Puke was getting ravaged and we got to learn first-hand, with probably a little bit more time to react and slow it down and control it.”

Andrew was among the first handful of orchardists in the area to find the dreaded Psa leaf spots. In his case, the bacteria appeared on new G3 vines.

“They’d been grafted in 2010 so I had the leaders down and a whole lot of Bruno rootstock to fill in the gaps. When Psa was found, Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) asked us to pull them all out and incinerate them. They brought a portable incinerator on site and I remember pulling out all those little plants I’d planted the previous year and putting them in a smoking incinerator. It was pretty frustrating, I felt like I was going backwards. That’s when I started looking for other work.”

However, his day job ensured he visited a range of orchards and spoke with a wide network of more experienced growers who shared their wisdom and helped him gain perspective. Perhaps this bacterial incursion would not be as bad as feared for everyone. The coolstore company was faring better than expected and the G3 cultivar looked increasingly promising.

On the orchards he managed, Andrew quickly began advising owners to ramp up orchard hygiene practices and to get rid of their Hort 16A vines and switch to the new gold.

“I was telling those growers that hadn’t changed over to G3 that Psa would come eventually and it was better to transition while the root stock was healthy. We’d seen Te Puke growers say the best thing you can do is do things early. And getting rid of Hort 16A in the area quickly definitely meant inoculum levels didn’t get as high.”

“For our growers in Auckland, they were still Psa-free and the returns for Hort 16A were good so it was hard trying to say ‘cut off your vines and cut off your income now’. It goes against every instinct. I was a younger guy talking to older growers but I think it definitely helps when you’re talking about what you’ve done and what you’re seeing on your own orchard.”

“On my orchard, I thought the thing to do was to keep the vines healthy. I didn’t feel like spraying endless litres of copper was necessarily the right thing to be doing and I got a little bit of flak for saying that to growers.”

Andrew sold his first G3 crop in 2012. By then, the new gold variety was fetching premium prices.

“It was a bit surreal. I can remember earning good money back then, going from bust to boom.”

In recent years, his life has changed drastically. He is married now, with two children and a house at Mount Maunganui.

“Kids put life into perspective. Weekends are more precious to spend with them rather than to always be on the orchard.”

He has not lost his enthusiasm for the industry, though. He works for Seeka now – the Dawson family sold the business to Seeka in March 2019 - and is developing accommodation for overseas workers on his own land. He is also helping oversee improvements to the family’s landholdings; better shelter, improved water access, ongoing maintenance. And he is still drawn to innovation and to taking a few calculated risks.

“I’m trying the new red variety. Part of me tries to keep things in check, I don’t want to feel it’s all too good to be true. I’m positive and excited about the industry and I still think there’s a lot of room for growth.”

“With Psa, I’ve gained a bit of resilience and experience and learned to keep sort of fighting and pushing. I’ve learned, if you want to achieve something, it’s possible.”

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DEBBIE ROBINSON

PSA HELPED US ALL PREPARE FOR FUTURE THREATS An upbeat market visit to Europe and India took a sombre turn when bad news reached Debbie Robinson as she travelled home. An unwelcome bacteria had emerged in a kiwifruit orchard just across town from Trevelyan’s postharvest company, where she worked as Supply Manager.

Until then, the industry trip had gone well.

International kiwifruit buyers were positive about sales projections and Debbie expected to deliver an optimistic report of her findings.

Instead, she and her colleagues found themselves trying to deal with Psa-V on multiple fronts.

“We went straight into looking at where the risk areas lay,” she says. “We knew a lot of growers were looking at losing their livelihoods so we tried to find ways to support them. We did as much as we could with tech transfer, making sure they had as much information as we could get. We also looked through the business to find efficiencies and therefore save costs, with a view to limiting any cost increases to growers. And all development was put on hold, we had to be more efficient with the plant and machinery we had.”

DEBBIE ROBINSON Her role, which included making grower payments and providing forecasts, became more demanding as growers found their equity had dropped drastically and their banks wanted financial reports and projections. Suddenly, everyone was asking for records and for forecasts that were tough to give.

Debbie remembers the town’s largest venue, The Orchard Church, filled with people seeking answers from industry leaders.

“The halls were overflowing. Hundreds of people were turning up because they were hungry for information. Orchardists are practical people and they were all searching to find out if there was something they could do that somebody else hadn’t thought about. Anything they could spray on vines, or something that would actually eradicate it.”

“In the early days, human nature came into play and there was some stigma around having a Psa positive test. You have it, I don’t so don’t come near. Lots of blame. But our real concern was people’s mental health so we put on all sorts of things, get-togethers. One guy took a group of people up to the Redwoods, biking. It was about fellowship, getting together so people could have a bit of fun and get off the orchard.”

Trevelyan’s staff - about 200 full-time and up to 1600 during peak season feared for their jobs, too. Constant meetings were called to deliver employee updates. Meanwhile, plenty of senior managers were sleeping poorly, worrying about work as well as their own orchards, and Debbie was among them.

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Early on, she and husband Dennis faced the prospect of being forced to cut out all their organic green vines after finding leaves marked with spots ringed with the unwelcome, telltale yellow halo.

Fortunately, the policy changed from wholesale removal to piecemeal management of infected vines just days before they returned a positive Psa-V test.

“We were right in the danger zone and I remember researching, seeing what else we could grow. I found these little stevia melons. Maybe we could grow those. Or organic tobacco. What could we do with the land if all the kiwifruit died?”

“I think Psa was probably more traumatic because potentially people were losing their entire livelihoods. And Psa was a long, slow learning process, we learned as we went. Whereas COVID-19 was quite a different beast. It was instant bang, bang, bang decisions because we had to change what we were doing overnight.”

A decade on from the Psa-V ambush, Debbie remains in the Supply Manager’s role and is not planning to plant tobacco any time soon.

“We still have Psa on our orchard today. It’s not gone but Dennis just manages it.”

“We farmed through but production was well down for three years. We had a bit of trauma here because we got hailed on, too, three days before harvest in the May before Psa. Sixty per cent of our fruit was hit. It was just white, completely white, like Switzerland out there. All our leaves were shredded.

The hail stones were so big, we think they damaged the canes and made them susceptible to Psa which loves wet and cold.”

She is seeing encouraging signs for the industry; plenty of growth and high grower returns.

“Especially in this COVID-19 environment, we’re in an industry that’s growing healthy produce and there is such a demand in the market for what we’re growing. I think it’s safe to say we’re happy being in that position.”

Back at work, the company had fortuitously embarked on a self-examination programme well before the virus hit. All systems were already under review with the aim of managing the business more efficiently, cutting down double-handling, removing waste and inefficiencies. However, planning was tricky in the face of so many unknowns. Would they have any kiwifruit to pack, or half the volume?

And constant adaptation proved essential. When concerns were raised over fruit picking bins and the chance they might spread the virus between orchards, Trevelyan’s engineers developed a system to disinfect bins as they entered and left the packing shed.

In some ways, Debbie says, Psa helped the kiwifruit industry. It improved orchard hygiene practices and strengthened the biosecurity measures needed to ward off future threats.

She also suspects Psa helped prepare companies for the arrival of COVID-19. Systems were in place to share information quickly and, in Trevelyan’s case, daily management meetings kicked in instantly. Though there were obvious differences between the two crises.

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KAREN ROCHE

PEOPLE AND TOWNS ARE RELIANT ON A BOOMING KIWIFRUIT INDUSTRY In shock value terms, Katikati pack-house boss Karen Roche rates the arrival of a horticultural bacteria alongside an unforgettable royal death.

The Birchwood General Manager likens Psa-V’s appearance in the Bay of Plenty to news that the Princess of Wales had died in a car crash 13 years earlier.

“I remember where I was when Lady Diana died and it was a bit like that,” Karen says of the day she learned a Te Puke orchard had been struck by the virus.

Over the ensuing days, they set to work trying to deal with immediate fears and practicalities and all the questions they couldn’t properly answer. Would it be as bad as the stories emerging from Italy? Would the industry survive?

Would anyone keep their jobs? And where on earth did a person find disposable overalls in extra-large sizes?

“All of a sudden, there were all these hygiene considerations. Once we started sending our people out to monitor orchards, we had the whole exercise of trying to find these white suits, what to use and of course we’ve got all kinds of body shapes needing them. We had to source sanitising gear for tools, stuff for hands, foot baths, the list went on and on. The contractors who were going onto the orchard had to do a clean-up spray of their gear. Growers didn’t always have hoses or water where it was needed, so you had to find a water source.

Everything took longer.”

“Later, when we picked and packed, we were advised to sanitise the picking bags on and off the orchard, to only use picking gloves once on an orchard.

We were going through all these picking gloves. We had to supply the tractor drivers with brushes so there was no plant material on the tractor or bins and that meant another 15 minutes when you got to work and half an hour at the end. We were washing down equipment and not letting vehicles onto the orchard.”

“We did all that but still we got it. Usually after a massive wind, you’d see it had sneaked into somewhere that had some shelter trees down. It was a beast of a thing.”

When Psa landed in Karen’s lap, she was three years into the role and still learning, with 10 full time staff and 50 supplier orchards, centred around the Katikati district. While it was her years of administrative and other industry experience that won her the job, she swears it is parenthood that best prepared her to manage the pack-house and tackle the Psa fallout. The mother of three – one unexpected set of twins and a child with a disability – says running a postharvest operation is much like looking after a busy family.

“You’re juggling lots of balls, exactly like when you have kids going to three different sports events and you’ve got to have a plate for one. In the packhouse, being a mother helped me more than anything else. And staff squabbles are just like dealing with fighting kids.”

Her workplace family was fearful of the job losses that initially looked inevitable as the industry battled the bacteria, and Karen worked hard to reassure them.

She was doing the same thing each time she visited town and found herself talking to worried store owners and managers who would quiz her about Psa and its progress, fearing for their livelihoods and employees.

“They were scared. Katikati is a very small town so the shopkeepers were totally reliant on kiwifruit and a booming kiwifruit industry. The poor townspeople, every time I’d go into town they’d say, what do you know?”

“It was around five in the evening and my Grower Services Manager Jane Wordley and I were still here at work when we heard. We were thinking, what the hell? How could it possibly get here? I’ve got a little fridge in the office where we keep wine, usually for grower events and well, we sat down with a glass of wine.”

Growers were frightened, too, and plenty resisted the hygiene precautions, adamant it would would never reach their orchards in Katikati or Waihi.

That night, Karen and her colleague started out the way they would continue; they made a plan and began phoning their orchard managers to share the scant information on hand.

“But at Birchwood, we knew it was inevitable. If it had got to Te Puke from overseas, it was blinking going to get here. We did get some grace in that we were fortunate to be able to observe what was happening in Te Puke and we wanted to front foot it. We wanted to be prepared.”

“We battled that attitude for a long, long time. Even when they got Psa, there was denial. They didn’t really believe it, they’d say ‘it’s just spotting, I’ve seen that before’. The growers who had been in denial were the ones hit hardest mentally.”

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Karen says Zespri’s Canopy website was a godsend, providing constantly-updated information. Later, it was support from Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) and New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI) that made her feel less alone and better informed. Both Karen and Jane dispatched constant updates to growers and regularly gathered staff to share news in-between attending a seemingly endless stream of meetings.

“That’s what I remember, the meetings. Lots of miles, lots of late nights. All the phone calls and newsletters. Those newsletters were hard. I’m more operations and financials but all of a sudden I was having to become an expert wordsmith to get the information out there.”

“The more information we got, the more we realised how little we knew. We were just flying by the seat of our pants, hoping whatever product we were using was right. Often it wasn’t and we had to say, ‘they’re not recommending that anymore’ and change what we were doing.”

Jane and Karen implemented a weekly Tuesday afternoon catch-up session, where growers were invited to meet informally with staff, over a glass of beer or wine. Professional counsellors were also brought in to help both staff and growers cope.

“I remember one of the things they said was how to sleep at night. They were giving us tools to switch off when your brain is going 100 miles an hour.

That was me. I’d be running over everything I’d been doing during the day. Now, did I do that? Did I organise that? Did I let them know? Have I missed something? For me, the answer was having a piece of paper by the bed, to write it all down. Lists, always lists.”

Both Karen and her Orchard Services Manager had a personal stake in finding the best ways to manage the bacteria. Jane and her husband had signed a deal to buy a 4-hectare orchard planted in green and gold, with settlement day falling just 24 hours after the Psa-V announcement. Karen and her husband also owned an orchard.

“We had green and Gold9 but we didn’t know it would be okay so we made a plan. When Psa decimated it, we were going to make it into a golf driving range. Or maybe blueberries. That’s how we were thinking early on.”

By the time the infection reached the Katikati area, Psa was better understood and there were glimmers of hope on the horizon. It was becoming clear that Hort 16A gold vines were harder hit than green and it looked likely the industry might weather the storm. Karen and her team continued to devour information, trying to advise growers on the best approach, advising they strike early and prepare for the worst; book contractors quickly, bring a digger in to ensure there was a hole ready to bury any infected vines.

KAREN ROCHE

“It was a continual learning curve. I remember vividly we blowtorched some Psa and burnt it.

Everyone was trying different things and we had to be continually telling growers, don’t listen to those snake oil people. In the early times, I really did think there’s got to be a silver bullet, they’ll find this magic spray, but we finally figured that was not going to happen. We were going to have to live with it.”

And it wasn’t all bad. She recalls the strong sense of camaraderie and support between everyone from the Zespri Chief Executive down.

What’s more, Karen admits Psa did have one upside.

“It gave us G3. Hort 16A was horrible to pick and pack because it had a beak.

That was a problem if you mishandled it, it got a little cut. Even packing, it was really hard to stop that physical damage. And G3 is such a beautiful fruit to pack. It’s even, it doesn’t get that blemish.”

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LINDA PEACOCK

AN INDUSTRY THAT’S COOPERATIVE, COLLABORATIVE, AND BRAVE For Linda Peacock, Psa-V was payback time.

Compassion shown to her family in the face of a frightening childhood viral infection would shape her response to the horticultural bacteria that descended decades later.

The Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) Industry Liaison and Technical Specialist has been involved with kiwifruit since age 14, when she found a school holiday packing job within weeks of moving to Te Puke with her family in the early 1970’s. By the time Psa-V arrived in town, she held the Innovations Manager role at post-harvest company DMS Progrowers.

She was also particularly well placed to provide both technical assistance and emotional support to growers and colleagues.

The needs triggered by Psa-V reminded Linda of a pivotal experience growing up on a dairy farm near another small, rural community in the Waikato.

Linda recalls the way Te Aroha neighbours provided support after all eight members of her family contracted Hepatitis A and her father became dangerously ill with the liver-damaging virus.

LINDA PEACOCK RECEIVING THE 2020 MINISTER’S BIOSECURITY AWARD

“We were helped, in a crisis situation, by the kindness of these salt of the earth people,” she says, remembering the meals delivered and practical help provided. One neighbouring family stepped in to run the farm until her father was on his feet again.

“So, when Psa came along, I wanted to offer myself into whatever roles anyone needed. It felt like giving back, like a full circle thing. You were all sitting at the same meetings, feeling the same pain. You had your moments of breaking down and someone always kind of put their hand out. When I was young it was the same, the thing that kept me going were the hands extended to me. And you do remember those hands.”

In November 2020, Linda received a New Zealand Biosecurity Award for her services to the kiwifruit industry. Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor cited her tireless work for growers and technical teams, including during the Psa-V period. He mentioned her ability to turn scientific information into easily understood, practical solutions for kiwifruit growers and said she had been “an incredible mentor who always puts the needs of growers first, with passion and empathy.” She also has plenty of personal experience in hard graft and the industry’s ups and downs.

During her Te Puke High School years, academic work was slotted in between holiday jobs, fruit picking on her parents’ orchard and competitive netball and basketball games. A Master’s Degree in biochemistry led to a job with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in Lower Hutt before wanderlust saw her work in an Icelandic fish factory and spend nine months travelling from Zimbabwe to London.

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In the late 80’s she returned home to help with her family’s developing kiwifruit orchards and small pack-house and coolstore. Within 18 months, the family business was rocked by soaring interest rates then a slump in kiwifruit returns.

While DMS had to cut costs, the company opted to retain as many of its full-time employees as possible. “It’s the livelihood of those people that fills the town, fills the community. And if everyone disappeared, how would we rebuild all that knowledge if and when things improved? We needed to stay calm and tread slowly, and have belief we would find a way through this.”

“We came close to losing everything,” she says.

“But we managed to keep the home orchard going and we took on contract orchard work and packing. That gave us the all-important cashflow to keep going through the toughest times.”

Early on, Linda joined an industry fact-finding mission to Italy, where she spoke with Psa-hit growers and was heartened to learn scientists in both countries were collaborating and that copper was proving beneficial in Europe.

Linda continued to gather industry experience setting up pest monitoring centres, helping run the family business, a post-harvest operations job - until landing her management role at DMS Progrowers.

“As we came up to 2010, the industry was entering a really exciting phase because of the new varieties coming through. At DMS, systems were running well, we had a lot of good people and we were looking at where to go next. Then Psa came along and a great big challenge came into our lap.

I’m a pretty competitive person and I do like a challenge, but this was not the sort of challenge we had in mind.”

“Suddenly, we were trying to work out what Psa would mean to us, how far it might spread, where it is, what do the symptoms look like, what we need to do now. We didn’t know much but we knew the world had changed just a little bit at that time.”

Theirs was the post-harvest facility closest to the initial outbreak and Linda set to work calling lists of growers, trying to gather and disseminate whatever information she could while establishing systems to monitor orchards.

“Monitoring was a big thing. Hours and hours of taking photos, seeing if we could detect it, sending photos to Zespri, hours of walking up and down rows of kiwifruit. We had to equip teams with sanitisers, tell them what they could and couldn’t do. We also needed to quickly develop strategies for our orchard management and contract teams to keep things moving and staff employed.”

“Leading up to the first harvest, we were trying to understand how the industry should manage the harvest. So DMS worked with Zespri to put together a video to show what was important to avoid Psa transfer from one property to the next.”

Beyond the practicalities that needed attention, emotions were running high. Everyone was quite shaken up.

“That fear came in waves. People were asking what about Hayward, what if that goes? What other crops could we go to? And if everyone leaves town and turns off the lights, how long will it take for the entire town to be engulfed by wild kiwifruit?

We reckoned about two years.”

In mid 2011, she was co-opted to the recently-formed KVH team to help collate and clearly communicate technical information, providing industry updates on best practice and helping growers make sense of scientific data.

“My first day on the job was going to Waihi with KVH Operations Manager Braden Hungerford, to confirm whether we believed there was Psa at a Waihi site. And there was.”

One of her roles involved reviewing and reporting on the ‘side-by-side’ Plant & Food Research trial set up to see how different cultivars were faring against the bacteria. She also looked at which disease management techniques were working.

“We could see Hort 16A was a bit of a sissy in that it falls over straight away, while Hayward was like a teenager that gets spotty but grows out of it. G3?

Well, this one seems to have a little bit of spunk to it.”

Linda ran regular KVH forums that gathered the industry’s technical staff together at the Te Puke Plant & Food Research centre. The meetings provided research updates and allowed participants to support each other and to share what they were seeing out in the field. Often, their work involved dealing with unhappy people desperate for answers and Linda made a point of keeping an eye on her forum group. Several times, she called in pastoral care specialist Ian Greaves to provide extra support.

“A lot of us cried, no doubt about it. The tiredness, the anxiety, the stress, not wanting to let people down. They were quite dark days.

I guess we didn’t go to war, but it felt a little bit like it. You felt the need to be strong and brave in the presence of other people, but it has to come out somewhere. Often, Saturday was a bit of a release day for me and I definitely shed some tears.”

Getting into a kayak or pulling on tramping boots and heading into the bush or the Papamoa hills was helpful. She discovered meditation, too.

“It was a character-building time. The answer is to change down a gear and keep going more slowly. Some days were great and some days not so much.

But life would be pretty bland without some rock and roll, everyone gets a turn at that. And to go through that with such an amazing group of people makes you very proud, it creates a bond between the people who travelled through it. It’s a huge pleasure to be part of an industry with ongoing forward vision. One that’s collaborative and cooperative and brave.”

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NEALE CAMERON

PSA SHOWED US WHAT WE’RE CAPABLE OF

“There were lots of sleepless nights, the whole thing was horrific in terms of stress. We had to make a call to say that, even though there’s a risk bees will spread Psa we need them in the orchard to pollinate. On the other hand, it was quite amazing to make calls that were quickly implemented.”

Once systems were in place, he returned to his day job. It was not an easy one in those times. Neale says more kudos needs to go to those grower representatives who stood alongside growers, often bearing the brunt of their pain or anger. He and his colleagues frequently visited four or five orchards in a day.

“Grower reps were actually the guys on the frontline because they were facing the growers every single day, listening to them, hearing their stories. Quite often you’re a shoulder to lean on and you become really close, you become friends.

That’s the beauty about it, your job is visiting your mates. So it’s hard to see them hurting.”

“It was a roller coaster. We’d go through these valleys where we thought it was all over. Then, oh mate, there’s a glimmer of hope. Then another valley.”

“I remember the first time I saw Psa. I was on one of the orchards next door to ground zero and there were Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) herd testers there who had absolutely no idea what they were looking at. They didn’t know the difference between a male and a female plant.”

“And I’ll never forget seeing an orchard collapsing, literally collapsing. It just dropped, died, it was unbelievable. And this salt of the earth guy had this huge orchard, with large amounts of debt.”

A pleasant four-week sojourn to France ended badly for Neale Cameron, when he stepped off a plane and into a crisis.

The Apata pack-house Grower Services Representative had spent most of October discussing bees with French apiarists and kiwifruit growers, after Zespri shoulder-tapped him to help with an overseas education programme.

As soon as he landed at Auckland Airport, in November 2010, the former beekeeper realised he would not be heading home to his family as planned. Instead, he was summoned to an urgent meeting where the kiwifruit industry tried to work out how a devastating new bacteria had arrived in New Zealand.

“I was dazed and confused,” he says, remembering his shock as the Psa-V news vied with exhaustion in the wake of a long flight.

“I flew to Tauranga and then I went straight to the Zespri boardroom. There were so many questions, it was horrendous. Though, to be fair I didn’t actually know how horrendous it was at that stage because I didn’t know much about Psa. We thought we were living in utopia down here.”

In the immediate aftermath, Neale parked his Apata job and went to work alongside Zespri Technical Manager Shane Max, to help create the protocols needed to manage beehive and pollen movements around orchards.

“Or sitting on a rise with a grower’s father, looking down as they were chopping out the family orchard. We were watching the canopy disappear, all the years of work disappearing. It had been a stunning orchard, they were at the top of their game. He was devastated but he made the call to do it early. He was one of those leading growers, not the following kind. He wasn’t one of the guys that hung in there.”

“Some people can shake that off but not me.

I’d end up going from terrible story to the next terrible story and carrying it all at the end of the day.”

One grower he worked with admitted to waking in tears each morning. Neale insisted the man see his doctor.

In August 2012, he was appointed Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) Operations Manager. He spent 18 months in the job, responding to Psa-V incursions as they struck each new growing area around the North Island.

As he moved from region to region, Neale made sure he donned a white hazard suit, gloves and boot covers, that he sanitised everything and changed clothes before entering another district.

He recalls a tough-looking former dairy farmer in one region who was horrified to discover his orchard was the first in the area to be hit. “There was this old staunch ex cocky, a tough guy, typical. But I’ll never forget his chin wobbling, the poor guy thinking he had done something to cause it. Everyone felt so bad if they were the first, but I used to say, ‘you found it and reported it, that’s good’.”

“Every region felt the same way, that they were different, their orchards were further apart and healthier and it wasn’t going to hit them. Till it did.”

Difficult as the job was, it certainly wasn’t all bad. He admits there was a certain kind of excitement in the ability to cut through red tape and talk to top industry people in order to make rapid, practical decisions.

He also relished the challenge of bringing people alongside, including those with opposing views, to work together for the sake of the industry.

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NEALE CAMERON

“If I look at it at a high level, I think we had total transparency about what was happening, what was working. From where I stood, I could see there were people who were meant for that time. Men like Braden Hungerford, Ian Greaves, Peter McBride. You couldn’t have better people.”

“Basically, overnight we put protocols in place; all the sanitising, all the social distancing. It was kind of déjà vu. We just bought in a lot of learnings we had, it was easy for us.”

“Also, communications were so fluid. Because of that Zespri single desk model, we were not competing against each other. That single desk is one of the key factors in our ability to work through it, to work together.”

Neale calls himself a lifer, a Te Puke-born kiwifruit worker, investor and former orchardist who has spent his life in an industry he wholeheartedly believes in.

He is realistic about potential future impediments; other biosecurity incursions, weather or world events and fluctuating market demands.

He saw this happen again, in his current role as General Manager of BayGold kiwifruit company, when COVID-19 forced New Zealand into lockdown.

The industry quickly developed systems and shared information so harvesting and packing could continue.

“Kiwifruit is always going to have hurdles but it’s a great product and we’ve got the people there to do what needs to be done. What have we learned from Psa? I think it just shows what we’re capable of doing. It has definitely strengthened the industry.”

“I’m so excited about the future. I’m jealous of the new generation who get to launch into it when there’s so much potential.”

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ROD FRY

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ROD FRY

SHUTTING THE DOOR ON PSA-V “Psa-V is like rust – it never sleeps – so we shut the gate on any machinery, plant material or pollen coming to the South Island,” says Rod Fry, who in 2010 was chairman of Mainland Kiwi Growers Entity Ltd. “When we heard Psa-V was in the North Island I flew up to have a look. The industry up there was almost on its knees and I knew we didn’t want the disease here,” says Rod, who as well as Chairman of Mainland Kiwi, which co-ordinates regional pack-houses and coolstores for kiwifruit exported through Zespri, was also a member of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI).

“If Psa-V got to Nelson we would be more badly affected than North Island growers because our temperatures are so much lower, which favours the disease.”

Staying Psa-V free was vital to all Nelson growers and perhaps even more so for Rod, who began his horticultural career aged just 14. In the six decades since he’s experienced the highs of the industry and the lows, many of them completely out of his control. That wasn’t the case with Psa-V so he was determined to do what was required to keep it out.

“We also identified any kiwifruit orchards abandoned during the industry’s financial crisis of the early 1990s, removed the vines and destroyed them, to reduce the risk that they could become an infection source.”

Protocols for orchards were also put in place including spraying machinery and the use of footbaths to clean footwear.

The combination of the growing region’s distance from Psa-V affected orchards, the “border” created by the Cook Strait and the very nature of the horticultural industry in the upper South Island also helped keep Psa-V out.

“Most kiwifruit orchardists here grow more than one crop, so have their own tractors, spray and mowing equipment which means we don’t have contractors from the north coming down here to work.”

“There is a risk from pruning contractors who might come here to work so growers must ensure they sterilise their equipment.”

Ten years on, there is no evidence of Psa-V in Nelson orchards, but Rod says vigilance is still needed. “Psa-V hasn’t gone away. It’s still in orchards in the North Island and we want to keep this area free of it.”

Rod says it was fortunate that the new gold variety G3, which has tolerance to Psa-V, had already been commercially released and was in the South Island before Psa-V was discovered. “That meant we could graft over from Hort16A to G3, knowing the local budwood was disease free.”

Many Nelson growers continued to produce Hort16A, the gold variety so badly affected by Psa-V in North Island orchards, right until Zespri stopped accepting it for export. “They couldn’t afford to make the change to the new gold and lose production all at once, but most were not sorry to see 16A go.”

The fruit was hard to pick and pack and needed careful handling because its distinctive “beak” increased the risk of damage to the fruit.

Rod’s long career in horticulture began when as a 14-year-old he leased five acres of land at Riwaka to grow tobacco. “Within two years I had made two thousand pounds which was enough for a deposit on a derelict farm in Swamp Road.”

At 17 he asked a bank manager for a two-thousand-pound loan to buy the land.

“He turned me down at first then came back and said he’d give me the money.”

“The government and Zespri helped to stop anything which could have carried the disease from crossing the Cook Strait.”

Fifty-six years ago, Rod married Dee, whose Goodall ancestors arrived from England in 1842, just two years after Rod’s family settled in the region. Together the couple raised three children and built a diverse horticultural business growing initially tobacco and hops, moving to nashi, kiwifruit and apples.

The restrictions imposed 10 years ago remain today and include strict cleaning and movement tracing protocols for all orchard machinery going south. Budwood and pollen are prohibited from entry.

Rod first planted Hayward kiwifruit in 1978 and only had a small planting of gold Hort16A in 2010. The family’s kiwifruit orchards have now increased to 20 hectares of green and 15 hectares of G3.

In 2020 Rod and Dee lived in urban Moteuka, while son Jared and daughter-in-law Selena operated the family apple and kiwifruit orchards and post-harvest facilities.

However, Rod still enjoyed the outdoors and farming. He drove to the family farm on Peach Island in the Moteuka River every few days to check up on his herd of 80 beef cattle.

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STU WESTON

NECESSITY THREW US TOGETHER When Stuart Weston claims a kiwifruit bacteria pushed him to the edge of his capabilities, it’s worth noting his threshold is unusually high.

During the worst Psa months, the Apata Group Managing Director frequently clocked up 17-hour working days before crawling into his vehicle to snatch a few hours’ sleep in the pack-house car park.

For long periods, he saw his wife and three young children two days a week and when he did make it home, he was too exhausted to participate in family life. The bacteria’s dire impact forced Apata to lay off dozens of staff, shut down two plants and spend years battling to remain afloat.

“It was a crazy time,” he says. “I was right at the limits of human endurance but lots of people worked hard, I didn’t have a monopoly on that. My team was stoic and just faithfully soldiered on in spite of the mental challenges each was facing. Financially, it was really, really tight and we were fighting tooth and nail to make any money at all. We had to do whatever we could to survive.”

The tale of his on-site meeting with banking staff is legendary amongst longer-serving Apata employees.

The morning appointment was an important one, designed to convince the financial institution it should continue to back Apata Group despite the industry’s obvious woes. So, after working 18 hours – he finished at 3am - Stuart texted his receptionist to request an 8.30am wake-up knock on his Ford Territory car window before falling into a deep slumber.

“But I was so zonked out, she thought ‘poor dear, I’ll let him sleep a bit longer’.

At 9am, the Chief Financial Officer was in the meeting, thinking what the hell is Stu doing. I walked in wearing a Swandri, hair dishevelled, eyes out on stalks, to tell them how fabulously things were going. And I doubt I smelled good at all.”

“In fairness, the banks were really good to deal with. They understood, even though things were really difficult, if you’re going to back the kiwifruit industry you needed to back post-harvest as well as growers. And we had a plan, we had very good financial controls and reporting and forecasting. Well, you forecast as best you can.”

Nothing much was certain when Stuart took up the Apata reins for the second time. When he left the company in 2006 – headhunted by Talleys Group for the Chief Executive role at AFFCO - he had the top job and 15 years’ experience in the kiwifruit industry. He went on to clock up Chief Executive experience in the poultry industry before returning to Katikati in late 2012, to an industry battling with the effects of a virulent bacteria.

“To be frank, things were looking pretty dire. It was a very, very dark and sombre place to be. We were well and truly in the grips of Psa, it was spreading pretty quickly at that point. When you talk about Psa you think gold, but green was also hit hard.”

“From a post-harvest perspective, we have a massive infrastructure that has to be fed and if you take a small volume of fruit away it has a disproportionate effect. We were down 30% or more. There was no surety about what the next year held and we had to make some really tough decisions for the survivability of the organisation.”

Apata closed two of its three sites; one in Whangarei, one in Pyes Pa. While the company found work for a few staff at the Katikati site, the vast majority were made redundant.

“It’s a very real and raw human experience, having to explain there’s not enough work to go round. It was people’s livelihoods and they’re feeding families. It was a dreadful, dreadful experience and took a heavy emotional toll, something you wouldn’t ever want to do again in a lifetime.”

Costs had to be slashed in every area of the business while ensuring machinery was adequately maintained to protect future operations.

“I spent all my time on the floor, hands-on, donkey-deep in it. I was just watching everything and making sure it was completely efficient.”

“For me, management is a continual process of working with people, listening to what was really bugging them, trying to give assurance that if you just hang in there, there’s a way out of this. It was such a terrible time, they lost confidence and zeal. It took all my effort, it needed a lot of human connection. A lot. By the time I went home for a rest, I was a zombie.”

The Weston children saw their father two nights a week, if they were lucky. He commuted to the family home in Ngaruawahia rather than uprooting the family again for his third career change in six years. Besides, the kiwifruit industry’s future was too uncertain to justify yet another move. So wife Rachel solo parented and home schooled for most of the week and even when her husband arrived home, he was too physically and emotionally drained to be much use. Stuart describes the horror of realising, on his son’s fifth birthday, he could not summon the energy to run party games.

“I was derelict in my duties as a husband and father, and I can’t turn back time now; to me this was the greatest cost I paid, it was really the price my family paid, and I’m lucky they’re such a great team.”

“The job sucked everything out of me, everything. It was a pretty dark time for my family and I’m grateful to have such a supportive and capable wife. My own mother said ‘I don’t know why you put up with that, I’d have left him’.”

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“We’ve swapped one challenge out for another but at least we can share the load over more shoulders. It’s got busier but now we’ve built the team. Better volume and better margins mean we can take on key staff, build technology. We’ve been quite aggressive with technology, continuing to invest and invest, which is the polar opposite of what we were doing a few years ago.”

“It’s incredible, the growth trajectory. You have to be as smart and cunning with this growth as with Psa. You can hurt people by committing to too much and not preparing for the load and challenge that’ll come on. It requires planning.”

Between them, the two plants packed 14.4 million trays of kiwifruit – 45 per cent gold, the rest green - and a million avocados.

He says plenty of good things have emerged from those grim Psa years, including the Aerocool amalgamation.

“What do they say? Never waste a good crisis. Necessity threw us together and now we are a very strong, agile business. That probably wouldn’t have happened if Psa hadn’t come along. We would have missed the opportunity to get bigger and more efficient.”

In many ways, it also prepared his company for the challenges that COVID-19 delivered in 2020. In his case, there was one extra exacerbating factor in the mix, though.

STU WESTON Fortunately, the marriage survived, and the Weston family has since been reunited under the same roof, in the Bay of Plenty.

By late 2013 Stuart was noting some hopeful signals for kiwifruit, too, as Psa-hit green plants regenerated in spring and both SunGold and Charm varieties looked promising. That same year, Apata Limited joined forces with fellow post-harvest company Aerocool near Paengaroa, in the hope they could gain both scale and efficiency.

The Apata boss had long been talking up positive signs for the sake of his staff and bankers but, towards the end of 2014, he became certain the industry was turning a corner as volumes started to lift significantly.

“When you’re leading a company through dark times, you have to maintain a belief that things can get better and be always sharing this with your people.

Initially it’s a statement of faith. Then slowly, I started to see a legitimate end to the tunnel.”

“And it’s been coming on like a freight train ever since.

Zespri started talking about plans to release more licence and it became clear volumes were only going to grow and grow. So, as we climbed out of the abyss, in a weakened state, we were now facing Mount Everest to climb.”

During last season’s peak (2019/20), Apata Group employed 900 staff with a core full-time workforce of between 150 and 200.

Stuart still spends his days roaming the plant, talking with his people, asking after the forklift driver’s wife or stopping for coffee with the packing crew. Nowadays, though, he is keeping an eye out for signs of stress due to high work volumes.

In March, two days before New Zealand went into lockdown, his oncologist called to confirm he had cancer in his kidney and to book urgent surgery.

Stuart told the horrified specialist he’d have to wait until July.

“I said, we’re facing the biggest storm of our lives and I need to be in the thick of it. A whole lot of people are counting on me. I need to stay in front of people and lead them through it.”

And he proceeded to do just that, telling no-one about his diagnosis until the fruit was safely packed and stored. He has spent at least some of his months-long recovery reflecting on what the last decade or so has taught him.

“I think what it does do, it makes us so grateful. Hey, we might be struggling with growth and going through growing pains as an industry but compared with what we’ve been through with Psa, I’ll take these problems any day. I guess as I get older, I’m having to be a lot smarter, rely more heavily on my guys and girls. I’ve been a terror at getting people to do stuff and then check stuff to make sure it’s done right. Now, I rely more on my team.”

But he has no qualms about his handling of the Psa fallout.

“I’ve thought, do I regret working so hard? The answer is no. I could’ve spent more time with family, yes. But I was made for this. I’m passionate, I’m good at it. That really struck home when I went into surgery and was convalescing, the number of people from work who were calling and texting and visiting was embarrassing. But that’s cool, feeling part of a team and a family supporting each other.”

“The thing about a crisis is you see the best and worst in human nature. It becomes obvious who has the internal strength and solid foundation in their lives; crisis times allow the heroes to emerge and, during Psa, they popped up everywhere.”

“All too often it’s the generals who get the credit for leading and staying laserfocused on the fight. Actually, the real heroes were scattered throughout the industry, giving of themselves despite carrying huge burdens. Ian Greaves’ pastoral care work was outstanding. Raw, authentic. Ian is one of my heroes through this period.”

“We have some incredible folk in this Industry of ours.”

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MAF REFLECTIONS ҉ Barry O’Neil

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BARRY O’NEIL

PSA CRISIS CHANGED BIOSECURITY MANAGEMENT The kiwifruit industry’s Psa-V crisis became the catalyst for major changes to the way biosecurity incursions are managed in New Zealand.

“In effect kiwifruit was the first primary sector to partner with government to fund and manage a biosecurity incursion, paving the way for future Government Industry Agreements (GIA) for Biosecurity Readiness and Response,” says Barry O’Neil who in 2010 was Director General of biosecurity with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF).

“For some years Biosecurity Minister David Carter and I had been working to encourage primary industries to partner with government on biosecurity responses, but the wider primary sector was pushing back, expecting the government to fund everything.”

When the kiwifruit industry, within days of the Psa-V outbreak, put up $25million and asked the government to match it, that presented an opportunity to demonstrate how GIA would work.

Subsequently in May 2014, and with Barry O’Neil as its Chief Executive, Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) became the first primary industry to sign the GIA Deed. In 2020 there were more than 20 signatories to GIA representing horticultural, pastoral and aquatic sectors.

Back in 2010 KVH did not exist and the response to Psa-V was in the hands of MAF. For Barry, the crisis was also personal. “I had been a kiwifruit grower since 1984, was concerned about Psa-V and knew what the industry reaction would be, so I suggested to my boss at MAF at the time, Murray Sherwin, that I should go to Tauranga to lead the response from there, and he agreed.”

That was very unusual, as biosecurity responses were normally co-ordinated from Wellington. On the ground in Tauranga Barry and his team were able to make decisions quickly. “Sometimes I got in trouble for that, but I always had the support of Murray and Minister David Carter.”

The initial MAF response was not as quick as it could have been, so industry and Plant & Food Research staff took up the task of walking kilometres through orchards trying to identify Psa-V. Meanwhile Barry, together with Zespri’s leadership team, was fronting grower meetings where feelings were running high and accusations flying. “That was challenging and horrible, but we understood the growers’ genuine worry and concern and fears for the future.”

The MAF team members had real empathy for growers and the wider industry and wanted the best possible outcome, however Barry says it quickly became clear eradication was not possible.

Under the Biosecurity Act, there were three hurdles to overcome when deciding if eradication of Psa-V should be attempted. “Is it technically feasible, is it affordable and is it desirable? At the time we had no rapid diagnostic test for Psa-V and as it was a wind-borne disease, without that test, it would always be ahead of us. Was eradication affordable? That was very difficult because we couldn’t always find Psa-V. Last but not least - is it desirable? Taking out all the kiwifruit in Te Puke was not, in my opinion, desirable.”

However, the industry was not ready to give up on eradication so took over the response and the administration of the $50million fund and Barry returned to Wellington. It was normal for MAF to hand a response back to industry once it became clear eradication was not possible.

“I felt MAF withdrew too quickly, leaving the industry in limbo. Those first few months trying to eradicate Psa and pay compensation must have been so challenging. In reality the money was needed to fund research and a long-term management approach, which did eventually happen.”

Before he left, Barry had some advice for industry leaders including Lain Jager, Chief Executive of Zespri and Peter Ombler, president of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI).

“Big responses are all consuming and this one would take every resource Zespri, NZKGI and the post-harvest industry had. I recommended setting up a separate organisation and was really delighted when KVH was established and ably led by John Burke and his team. Little did I know that a couple of years later I would become Chief Executive for the organisation.”

Barry later left MAF and set up a consultancy firm working internationally. “It was not for me so I was very pleased to receive a call from the industry asking if I would like to apply for the lead role at KVH.” Barry admits to some nervousness about applying and was aware some in the sector were very uncomfortable with his appointment in 2012.

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BARRY O’NEIL

“Some looked at me as being part of the system that had allowed Psa to enter into New Zealand and I found that hard. I wanted to do my best and use my skills and experience to help the industry.

I remember Peter McBride saying; “we appointed the best person for the role and you are the best person. You have the experience we need to lead KVH and position the industry to manage it into the future. We have full confidence in you”. I really admired Peter for standing up and saying that. It was not easy at the time. Some individuals were very much throwing rocks at KVH and me, and Peter for appointing me.”

Putting that aside as best he could, Barry gave 150% to his new role. “I was impressed at what John Burke and the KVH team had achieved.

They had been through a hell of a ride and it was by no means over. They had driven the operational response but going forward what was needed was a pest management strategy to unite the industry to work together to overcome the immediate impacts and manage Psa-V long term. That included keeping it out of areas which were free of the disease and ensuring that where it existed, it could be managed.”

His former MAF colleague Andrew Harrison joined KVH and helped Barry complete the National Pest Management Plan. “The then Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy approved the Plan which gave KVH the legal basis on which to continue the response.”

“This included the ability to remove abandoned orchards, and the power to take action when orchards were not managed in line with Psa-V protocols. It also covered wider action including working with regional councils to control wild kiwifruit vines.”

“You can have all the powers in the world but it’s not easy to get people to comply. Much of the credit for doing so was down to the fantastic work of KVH’s Regional Co-ordinators who worked with growers to get alignment and response.”

“They knew the growers in their regions and had their respect. They called meetings and took almost constant phone calls. The post-harvest sector was also heavily involved. So many people, including growers, helped make the response work by stepping up to show leadership. Ultimately I think the response to Psa and where the industry is today is the result of the work of those people.”

In 2017 Barry, because of his previous role with MAF, was called to give evidence in the court case taken by Strathboss Kiwifruit Limited and Seeka. The issue in the case was whether, if it could be shown that MAF was negligent in granting permission to Kiwi Pollen to import pollen or in granting clearance to the shipment of anthers, the loss suffered by orchardists or others should be borne by them, or whether the loss was more appropriately borne by the Crown as the party, through its servants, if they were responsible for causing the loss. The case was, in 2020, still before the courts, following an appeal by the Crown to the original decision. In February 2021 an out of court settlement was reached between the Crown and kiwifruit sector plaintiffs.

In 2018 Barry resigned as Chief Executive of KVH and in 2020 he was Chairman of HortNZ. Although his involvement with the kiwifruit industry and Psa-V was at times fraught and challenging, he looks back with pride at having been part of the recovery from a crisis which could have destroyed the industry.

“Tackling Psa brought the industry together. Today it is even more organised, more successful and more prepared for future risks. It is fantastic to see growers support the wider role of KVH. It is a proactive, future focused organisation doing a great job for the industry.”

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PLANT & FOOD RESEARCH REFLECTIONS ҉ Joel Vanneste ҉ Bruce Campbell

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JOEL VANNESTE

IMPRESSIVE POLITICAL AND SCIENTIFIC RESPONSE Outbreaks of bacterial disease in crops often result in sudden and massive loss of production, with economic consequences stretching several years, but none has led to a political and scientific response of the magnitude seen in the case of the New Zealand outbreak of Psa in 2010, says Joel Vanneste, Senior Scientist with Plant & Food Research.

Joel, who was informed of the potential presence of Psa on a Te Puke orchard as soon as it was detected, says the rapid response was well organised and impressive.

“Only 11 days after the presence of Psa had been confirmed, and even though in the most affected area, Bay of Plenty, Psa was still restricted to an area of only approximately 3km by 6km, the only symptoms were leaf spots and shoot dieback, and there were no reports of vine death, the industry and government put together a $50million support package.”

JOEL VANNESTE

That quick response, Joel is convinced, contributed significantly to the industry’s recovery, but what also impressed the scientist was the focus on human welfare.

“Zespri, the marketer of kiwifruit was facing a huge financial hit but at every daily meeting held at the beginning of the outbreak and which I attended the discussion began with ensuring the welfare of everyone involved including growers, consultants and Zespri staff. As an example, Lain Jager (Zespri Chief Executive) said at one meeting; “there are lots of tired faces around the table.

Thank you very much for your effort and your hard work but if you are tired you might not make good decisions, so take a few days off for the benefit of everybody as well as yourself”. Although it really made sense, I thought that was remarkable that people’s wellbeing was given such a high priority.”

Psa-V was not new to Joel. He had studied it in Italy and in 2009 had produced KiwiTech bulletins for Zespri on guidelines for controlling and monitoring Psa. These were produced in Italian and French because the disease was present in both countries, and also in English for New Zealand growers, even though at that time Psa had not been detected here.

In October 2010, on behalf of Plant & Food Research and just a month before Psa was found in Te Puke, Joel made a presentation about Psa to consultants at a vine health management workshop organised by Zespri at Mount Maunganui.

The first question Joel asked was “Do we need to be afraid of Psa?” He answered that in an overhead slide with a big “YES” in capital letters. Another slide said: “Three good reasons why we need to be afraid of Psa. It is a very destructive disease. It can propagate very fast. We do not know how to control it effectively”. Unfortunately, those three points came to be proven true in New Zealand.

“Even though Italy was a long way away, and we didn’t have any reason to believe that Psa could be in New Zealand, we wanted people to be aware of the disease and to look for and report any potential symptoms.”

Finding Psa in New Zealand came as a shock to Joel. He had seen the destruction the disease caused in Italy and the emotional and financial toll it took on growers. “I was there in 2009 when bonfires burning diseased vines were going for nights and days. Latina is a flat area in Italy and at night you could see the fires and the smoke from very far away.”

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Joel was brought to New Zealand 30 years ago

by MAFTech and a few months later was asked to join the newly formed HortResearch (now Plant & Food Research). He was recruited in response to an outbreak of fire blight in Hawke’s Bay apple and pear orchards. He had worked on the fire blight causing bacterium Erwinia amylovora in Europe and the USA and is responsible for the development of ‘Blossom Bless’, a biological control agent which acts as a protectant, colonising susceptible flower parts and preventing the establishment of fire blight.

It was because of that work, the fact that his laboratory at Ruakura was the only plant bacteriology laboratory operated by Plant & Food Research, and the research he had done on Psa in Italy, that Zespri brought Joel into its response to the disease in New Zealand in 2010.

“Areas that needed urgent attention included finding products to control Psa, understanding the epidemiology to devise management practices that would reduce the impact of the disease, and developing tools necessary for the detection and identification of Psa.” “The first task was to determine which orchards were infected by Psa. This was made difficult because of the presence in New Zealand of a related and up to then unknown pathogen that caused necrotic leaf spots similar to that of Psa. At the time the only assay available to distinguish Psa from this new pathogen was very long and complex. Ironically and unfortunately, we did not have the time to develop a better assay because of the urgency of finding out where Psa was in New Zealand. It was only later that fast and accurate assays to positively identify Psa were developed.”

Then the next task was to find what products or compounds could be used to reduce disease incidence. “Several hundred products, including antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides, heavy metals, disinfectants, elicitors, biological control agents, natural products, and bacteriophages, were tested in the glasshouse for their ability to reduce leaf spotting following inoculation of young kiwifruit seedlings with Psa.”

“Few of those products significantly and consistently reduced disease incidence.

Nevertheless, following this programme several copper-based products, and streptomycin, kasugamycin (Kasumin®), the synthetic cytokinin forchlorfenuron (CPPU) (Ambitious™), and the elicitor acibenzolar-S-methyl (ASM) (Actigard™) have been registered for control of Psa in New Zealand.”

Alongside those products were orchard hygiene protocols for vehicles, people and equipment; cutting out diseased canes or vines; treating wounds and diligent monitoring of orchards for signs of the disease.

“The consistent and immediate release of research findings to the industry slowly improved the odds of growing kiwifruit in the presence of Psa. Some of the findings were minor, such as knowing that shelter belts did not need to be removed because Psa was shown not to multiply on the plant species that usually make up shelter belts in New Zealand.”

“Other findings were major, such as having a model indicating when Psa infections were most likely to take place, helping growers to time their antibacterial applications for when they were most effective.”

“I believe that this open and constant communication between the scientific community and kiwifruit growers played a role, even if limited, in alleviating some of the stress and anxiety of dealing with this devastating new disease.”

Joel says while no silver bullet or even dramatically new solutions to Psa were discovered from the extensive research by Plant & Food Research scientists carried out at the time of the outbreak, it was vital no avenue was left unexamined.

“We can’t always find new answers but when a disaster like Psa occurs, we could not take the risk that something that could help growers fight Psa and was already sitting on the shelf, was not used simply because we never tried it and we did not know it was useful. That was the motivation to do the huge screening programme we did.”

That work included examining some unconventional and unusual solutions.

“Many came from people with a genuine desire to help at a time when we didn’t know if the industry would survive and orchards were still being cut out. Our role as scientists was to take every suggestion seriously even though we could not always imagine how some of them could have ever worked. But it would have been wrong to say something will not work without trying it first.”

A couple of ‘solutions’ which tested that resolve included a claim that Psa could be eliminated by “electromagnetic waves” sent from very far away and a machine which could create an energetic pattern that would eliminate the energetic effects of a given substance.

On a more serious note, in Joel’s view, the work of scientists includes a social responsibility. “All the money which goes to science is from taxes or levies. We as scientists enjoy the money generated by other people through their work, so it is our responsibility to give something back. I was very happy to be able to do that through our work on Psa.” “Psa was a beautiful example of how scientists can do some excellent research which improves our general scientific understanding of a plant pathogen and as such can be published in top international scientific journals and presented at academic conferences, and at the same time has an important, direct and positive impact to an industry through extension work.”

Although the impacts of the disease were devastating for growers and the wider industry, Joel looks back at the work he did during the outbreak with some satisfaction. “Personally, it was a period of fulfillment in the sense that the work I was doing was having a direct and beneficial impact on the future of the industry and its people.”

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BRUCE CAMPBELL

VULNERABILITY A FUTURE CRISIS STRENGTH ‘The best of times – the worst of times’ Feeling vulnerable is a strength which can better prepare individuals and industries for times of adversity, believes Bruce Campbell, Chief Operating Officer of Plant & Food Research in 2010 when Psa-V was discovered in New Zealand.

BRUCE RECEIVING THE 2017 PRIME MINISTER’S $500,000 SCIENCE PRIZE ON BEHALF OF THE PLANT & FOOD RESEARCH MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM.

“My observations of other countries around the world affected by bacterial diseases, similar to Psa in their crops, is that many have not found effective solutions and the effects of the diseases have been devastating.”

When Bruce first learned that Psa-V had been found in New Zealand, he was concerned that the future for growers could indeed be bleak. “It seemed too hard to believe that Psa had turned up here. I had been watching its devastating effects in Italy and to suddenly find material from a Te Puke orchard sent to our Mount Albert lab had tested positive for Psa was a shock.”

“A sense of vulnerability is good as it helps to focus on what might need to be done in future if another crisis arises,” says Bruce who led the Plant & Food Research science team working to find answers to Psa-V.

“I was travelling to Hawke’s Bay at the time for meetings but decided I was in the wrong place so got up at 4am to drive to Mount Maunganui to join the response.”

Additional key elements for surviving a crisis are ensuring strong collaboration and unity, being prepared to respond rapidly, and building a strong underpinning investment in science to create future options you can call on. All those factors were in play when Psa-V was discovered in New Zealand.

Initially the Plant & Food Research science team was working in a vacuum as only a rudimentary test existed to identify Psa. “We tested a wide range of material and at first it looked as though the disease was everywhere in New Zealand. That didn’t make sense but if that was the case, then eradication was not an option.”

“The New Zealand kiwifruit industry can be really proud of its Psa response and the way the combination of a coordinated industry operating in close partnership with effective science teams produced a solution which worked, creating a very different future from what might have been.”

Testing was improved to identify two strains of the bacteria Pseudomonas syringae actinidiae, Psa-LV (less virulent) and Psa-V (virulent). That discovery helped inform the decision to attempt eradication, and although that ultimately was not possible, Bruce says it was the responsible approach.

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“It was the only decision to make at that time because the implications of what Psa could do here were unclear, as the only examples were overseas where it was devastating.”

It became clear in the first few weeks of the response that the industry had high expectations of what science needed to deliver. “It needed us to pull out all stops, and work closely with the industry.

When faced with an intractable, large problem, everyone must work effectively as a team. There were road bumps, initially not everything went well, and relationships were tested.”

“The stakes were so high it was really important to listen carefully to each other and to adjust to do things in a different way. It was a tough operating environment but through adversity, trusting relationships were developed.”

A watershed moment arrived when the industry decided eradication was not possible and the focus switched to learning to live with Psa. Plant & Food Research mobilised more than 100 scientists to work on further understanding the disease; what control could be effected through use of adjunct sprays, how to limit the spread of disease and to screen genetic material for tolerance to Psa. “There was a big resource of kiwifruit genetic material at Plant & Food Research’s Te Puke orchard and in other parts of the country, which was part of ensuring the future prosperity of the industry.”

“But at Te Puke huge tracts of those new varieties were being wiped out by Psa. A mission was mounted to rescue and protect that diversity through cryo-preservation and other techniques while at the same time setting up methods to fast track screening of plant material.”

“The clock was ticking for solutions to screen genetic material even faster so in effect we had to throw the science rule book out the window.

Science normally demands 95% surety of being right but Dave Tanner (Zespri’s General Manager Science and Innovation) said in this case, any decision better than 50/50 from the toss of a coin would be helpful.”

That required a completely different approach for normally cautious scientists, especially when Zespri Chief Executive Lain Jager told Bruce the industry needed a solution within two years. “To reassure offshore markets and the financial community to continue backing the New Zealand kiwifruit industry, two years to a solution was judged to be about the maximum time frame patience would hold.”

“That really put the acid on the genetic improvement programme. We had to pick a winner in this race. That winner proved to be the variety called G3, which had not initially been selected for a leading role.”

“G3 was intended to be a ‘shoulder-season’ variety for Hort16A. However, along with G9 and Green14, it showed a lot of promise in tolerance to Psa. It was a nerve-racking decision when the industry decided to go with G3.”

“The graft-over cost and time delay had to be right as if growers had to repeat different options to get the right one, it would have exhausted the industry quickly.”

While it was fortunate G3 proved tolerant to Psa-V, that it was available for commercialisation was not down to luck. “G3 was the result of a big investment and foresight by the industry over a number of preceding years to work in partnership with science. The whole purpose of the breeding programme is to create a range of future options. When challenged by Psa, that proved a critical approach because there were key tools available.”

“To start from scratch, using wild material to breed a plant with all the desirable characteristics to take to market, in a two-year time frame would have been unbelievably hard if not impossible. The fact that G3 was in the pipeline meant we were able to scale up quickly. Science was able to give industry leaders the confidence to make a choice and roll out a solution.”

“I am intensely proud of the Plant & Food Research science team whose members were incredibly focused on finding solutions despite operating in a difficult disease environment. Many set aside other longer-term science projects to shift focus to very applied work and immediate problem solving.”

“A number of the scientists involved would probably say that, while Psa was a terrible thing for the industry to go through, solving it and helping the industry recover was a highlight in their career. Having opportunity, under intense pressure and with very high stakes, to prove the value of science working as an effective team to deliver real value to industry is something scientists hold as very important.”

For Bruce it was ‘the best of times and worst of times’. “It was incredibly stressful and difficult, but also hugely stimulating to focus, then reach a point of delivering a solution through a team of 100 plus people from Plant & Food Research and its collaborators. It was a highlight of my career as I learnt so much through it including how important it is to present scientific challenges clearly and simply to motivate people to come up with effective outcomes.”

Bruce is proud that the work of the Plant & Food Research multidisciplinary team was recognised when it was awarded this country’s most valuable science award; the 2017 Prime Minister’s $500,000 Science Prize for its rapid and successful response to Psa. “That was a real credit to the team and recognition that increasingly science is solving intractable problems. To do so requires a strong team effort across multiple disciplines and approaches. It was fantastic to see all those involved recognised that way,” says Bruce.

In 2016 Bruce was awarded the Thomson Medal by the Royal Society of New Zealand for outstanding contributions to science and technology.

That was in recognition of his outstanding leadership in both the agricultural and horticultural sciences over 35 years. The medal selection committee particularly noted his scientific leadership during the response to the kiwifruit bacterial disease Psa.

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ZESPRI, NZKGI AND KVH REFLECTIONS ҉ David Tanner ҉ John Burke ҉ Lain Jager ҉ Mel Auld ҉ Mike Chapman ҉ Natalie Milne ҉ Peter McBride ҉ Peter Ombler ҉ Shane Max ҉ Sue Groenewald & Neill Malcon ҉ Terry Richards

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DAVID TANNER

CRISIS INDELIBLY ETCHED IN MEMORY Ask David Tanner when he first learned Psa-V was in New Zealand and he’ll immediately answer; “At 4.45pm on Friday 5 November, 2010 I received a phone call from Stuart Kay of Plant & Food Research saying a disease had been found on a Te Puke orchard and it tested positive for Psa-V”.

Almost every detail of the long and traumatic months which followed are equally indelibly etched in David’s memory. “I can even remember where I was and what I was wearing during some of the most heated meetings.” He also recalls, with a wry smile, appearing on TV news wearing his white “teletubby” hazard suit when visiting infected orchards.

However, moments of mirth were few and far between. Like many in the industry David was well aware of how Psa-V was affecting Hort16A vines, grown under licence to Zespri in Italy. He had been visiting Italy on Zespri’s behalf since 2007 and was there in 2008 when Psa hit orchards hard.

In his role as Zespri’s General Manager of Science and Innovation David contracted Dr Francesco Spinelli, Associate Professor at Bologna University in Italy and Joel Vanneste of Plant & Food Research in New Zealand to get a better understanding of what was happening.

“Psa was moving quickly through orchards. Initially it appeared heat stress might be a factor. There’s a belief the industry hadn’t done any research into Psa before it got to New Zealand but that’s not true, we had spent around $1million up to that point. Was it enough? Probably not and we didn’t have many answers in the lead up to the fateful day it was discovered in Te Puke.”

That ‘fateful’ Friday – Guy Fawkes Day – David finished his conversation with Stuart Kay, walked out of his office to find Zespri Chief Executive Lain Jager leaving his, ready to call in the crisis team, headed by Sally Gardiner, Zespri’s General Manager Supply Chain.

That first meeting began just after 5pm and the crisis was not stood down for 12 months. David, who the day before had returned from a fact-finding mission with post-harvest sector representatives to Europe and India, spent the weekend with the crisis team getting a handle on what was known and what was not. He remembers he only left the crisis room briefly to cook the barbeque promised for his daughter’s birthday. “I returned as soon as I could and over the next several days even slept in my office.”

When it came to the disease there was a dearth of information. “In the absence of information, you have to have leaders who could stand up and answer growers’ questions. Shane Max, Lain and myself made the decision that “I don’t know” was not the answer to give. Growers expected answers and we landed on; “This is what I do know and what I will find out”.

“We had to give growers a plan and hope, but as a group we had no formal training in how to deal with the grief growers were experiencing. The first meetings were sombre, and later there were plenty of times when people were yelling at you, blaming you.”

David wasn’t a grower at the time, but his parents were, and he’d grown up with the industry. “It was hard not to take it personally when people I had known since I was knee high to a grasshopper were taking aim at me. It was hard too, to see hard working grown men and women cry when faced with Psa and a sense of hopelessness.”

“I was also trying to support my parents who faced losing their orchard, so I took it personally when a grower came up to me and said I didn’t care, and the impacts of Psa didn’t mean anything to me. I told him he didn’t know me, or anything about me. Lain Jager stepped in and said he wouldn’t tolerate anyone talking to his staff like that and that I had been in the industry probably longer than that grower.”

David, and everyone involved in the response, did care. It was personal, and 10 years on the memories are still raw. All that emotion, and the threat to the industry and indeed the Bay of Plenty region’s economic welfare galvanised those leaders into action with the resolve to find answers and pull the industry through.

“We had a motto – look forward – don’t look back, and don’t blame.

It’s too late for that. It’s here and we have to deal with it. Don’t waste energy looking backwards.”

“By spring 2011, after a harsh cold winter, Psa had moved even further and it was pretty ugly. At that stage we didn’t have some of the tools which came later.”

Banks were becoming anxious about their investments in orchards and asked for a meeting to hear what the industry’s plan was. “We went into a meeting and Peter McBride told the bankers the industry decision was to launch Gold3. The science that backed up this decision was light, but there was confidence this was the single biggest decision in the road to recovery,” says David.

“Research showed it was better than Hort16A but by no means did we have all the answers about it. It’s a misconception that Gold3 was bred to be resistant to Psa. It was commercially released, along with Gold9 and Green14 early in 2010 and was tested by Psa only when it hit those orchards.”

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The variety had been at least 15 years in the breeding. “It was sheer luck that we had the luxury of sufficient budwood from orchards growing the variety commercially. If we had just a few hundred plants, there is no way we could have made the transition to Gold3.”

Gold3 was among the varieties bred by Plant & Food Research, using its own and Zespri funding.

Less than two weeks after the Psa incursion, David met with Dr Bruce Campbell, Chief Operating Officer of Plant & Food Research, and staff in Hamilton to discuss the response.

“Plant & Food Research made an immediate commitment to stand down non-urgent work and focus on Psa, including diverting money from other projects.”

As Hort16A vines were removed Plant & Food Research’s funding from royalties paid per export tray dropped away. “They took that on the chin and employed their best brains to focus on Psa. They also supported the kiwifruit industry to go anywhere else in the world for answers.”

Some of those answers were unsuccessfully sought from the international banana and citrus industries which were facing their own disease issues. Other, often unsolicited answers, came from far and wide.

“There were some weird ones like hammering copper nails into each vine or spraying with bleach.

We had to give attention to each one, no matter how crazy they seemed.”

In the end the answers, including removing Hort16A and managing the disease with orchard hygiene, existing sprays and new chemicals such as the plant activator Actigard™ came through scientific research and David is full of gratitude and admiration for the scientists involved.

“From the bottom of my heart, I thank the science team who excelled themselves. They were totally focused on the problem and didn’t leave anything on the table. They were a vital piece of the puzzle, but the solution was a lot more than science. The tenacity of growers, their perseverance to do things better on orchard was crucial too.”

While Zespri and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) had led the initial response, it was clear a dedicated organisation was needed to manage Psa into the future. Before Christmas 2010 John Burke, a grower who had recently stepped down as Chief Executive at Huka Pak, was asked to head Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH).

DAVID TANNER “I knew he was the perfect person to lead KVH. When the industry was on its knees for the first time in 1987, he was the guy who helped pull it together. He may not have been the front person, but he was busy in the background making things happen.”

While he wishes Psa-V didn’t arrive in New Zealand, David has no regrets about being involved in its response. “It took its toll on me personally and on my family but I have never worked with people who cared so much about their industry.”

“There were people like Melanie Auld who didn’t let anyone down in her communications role; the unsung heroes like Annette Marsh who was one of the “fairies” who could wave a magic wand and make things happen. She’d be there at 6am and still there at 11pm. The late Paul Rickett with his dry sense of humour, Shane Max, Ian Greaves, Terry Richards, Lain Jager, Sally Gardiner, Peter McBride, John Burke, Holly Brown, Simon Limmer, Carol Ward, Joel Vanneste, and so many, many more people.”

Psa has not gone away. “It’s quite bad in some orchards this season but we have the tools in the toolbox so it’s not a death sentence. It does knock the vines around a bit and does cost us money in extra growing costs.”

Are there other threats out there? “Most definitely. I’m not the only one who lies awake at night worrying about the arrival of unwanted pests and diseases.”

David hopes the lessons learned from Psa won’t be forgotten and the entire industry remains vigilant and committed to biosecurity.

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JOHN BURKE

ACHIEVING AMBITION, ASPIRATIONAL VISION Ambitious and aspirational, and one sceptics probably thought unobtainable; that was the goal Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) set itself in February 2011.

“Our vision is to maintain a thriving and profitable New Zealand kiwifruit industry which retains its position as the world leader in kiwifruit” was KVH’s strategy for Psa management in New Zealand, and its mission statement was: “Our mission is to minimise the impact of Psa-V on the New Zealand kiwifruit industry and enable affected growers to re-establish their orchards.”

Both were made in the face of a vine-killing bacteria which in four months had rapidly spread through Te Puke orchards with no signs of stopping.

Its impacts threatened the entire industry which in the 2008–2009 season had NZ$1.45billion worth of exports and the goal of tripling that to $3billion by 2015.

At stake were growers’ livelihoods; the incomes of marketer Zespri and post-harvest companies; the viability of hundreds of businesses reliant on kiwifruit, as well as the thousands of people the industry employed.

Steely resolve, strong leadership and assertive action were required and John Burke, who helped steer the kiwifruit industry out of the financial crisis of the early 1990s was selected as the man for the task. However, he was mountain-biking in the South Island when Psa-V was found in Te Puke in November 2010.

When John returned home in December, Peter McBride called asking him to take the role of Chief Executive of the newly formed KVH. “I decided General Manager would be a better title. It was important to downplay my position. I just wanted to be part of an industry team to drive that early phase of the recovery.”

“Growers didn't want to see us building an ivory tower and I was really focussed on integrating existing resources, particularly around post-harvest and Zespri, and getting growers to own the problem. We had to get them to take responsibility, particularly around biosecurity and what they were doing on their orchards to minimise the spread.”

John needed to get himself up to speed with Psa and the response. “When I stepped into the breach key people for me in understanding the science and what was happening on the ground were Dave Tanner and Shane Max. They, Zespri Chief Executive Lain Jager and staff provided tremendous support in those early days when we were based in the war room at Zespri.”

There were some major frustrations. There wasn’t knowledge at that stage about the two different isolates of Psa. When it was established that one type of Psa was less virulent than the other John suggested they be named Psa-LV (less virulent) and Psa-V (virulent).

Another frustration was the lack of a rapid diagnostic tool for Psa-V. “The timing on the understanding of where the infection footprint was, was slow because we were using 19th century technology, growing bacteria on agar plates and then isolating that bacteria until we could pinpoint Psa-V. In some cases, it was taking weeks to get a result.”

Post-harvest companies EastPack and Seeka formed a joint venture employing DNA scientist John Mackay, to develop a rapid diagnostic tool. “But we didn't get that tool until May 2011 when we actually needed it in November 2010. This should be a key lesson for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and other primary sectors.”

John says if rapid diagnosis had been available early in the piece, it would have shown how widely Psa was spreading. “We spent around $20million of the $50million fund on cut out. Would we have spent that much if we had that tool? Yes, we probably would have given elimination a crack, however if we had known that the infection footprint was more widespread then we probably would have pulled back on the aggressive containment strategy.”

The initial cut out saw both green and gold infected vines removed. “And then we had to get rid of the material. It was trucked into a forestry block at the back of Te Puke but growers began calling to say they had seen trucks driving past and were concerned infected material may escape, so that had to stop.”

Hayward green vines seemed to be holding up in the face of infection so on 11 February 2011 KVH directors agreed to focus solely on gold containment. “We were concerned that the infection was more widely spread than our priority zones and so we needed to move towards a containment strategy. Also, if we kept removing vines the $50million would soon be spent.”

“The source of inoculum was coming mainly from gold as it was exhibiting more susceptibility to the disease. By removing gold, we hoped to reduce the spread of the disease for a period.”

That’s when the first KVH strategic plan was written – all four pages of it.

“A good plan is a short, concise plan in which you don’t get lost in the words.

The plan included key objectives and actions from which we identified the skillsets to form our organisational structure going forward.”

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JOHN BURKE As well as its aspirational goals, the plan bravely set KVH a target date for recovery; “To enable orchards that have been affected from Psa-V to return to viable production by June 2015”.

“It was and wasn’t a popular decision because growers could see we were burning cash and it was better to prioritise remaining funds for spray subsidies, R&D and to build capability to contain and manage the disease utilising the resources of KVH and industry.”

Funding was directed to a spray subsidy. “This encouraged growers to contain the disease by spraying and drive change in behaviour and thinking towards protecting their orchards.”

The focus switched to best practice management and in March and April KVH biosecurity signs were rolled out throughout the growing regions urging “Check - Clean - Control.”

Another step was to decentralise the KVH response by appointing regional coordinators; industry personnel who were well known and respected in their areas to work with local post-harvest and growers. Harvest and processing protocols had to be urgently developed with pack-houses for the pending season. Control of the movement of nursery budwood was also imposed.

“On 29 March 2011 we ended subsidies for vine removal. We had people in the queue waiting for test results and some who missed out really needed that money.”

John was also building a team from scratch for KVH. “I looked for industry people willing to put their hands up. We quickly built a small, capable team and clicked together well. Regular communication was an important component to our strategy and required the development of a website and the weekly online KVH Bulletin which became a consistent and vital source of information for growers.”

Not all the battles were being fought in the orchards – the economic viability of the industry was very much under threat. “Communication with the banks was vital to convey that we were all in this predicament together and to brief them on R&D initiatives underway to find a solution.”

Gold orchard values had fallen from around $500,000 to less than $80,000 per hectare. “Grower balance sheets had been destroyed and we needed to engage with banks to bring them into the tent to work together on a pathway forward.”

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John’s prior experience in the Rural Bank and as an agribusiness consultant and valuer meant he knew many of the banking fraternity. June 2011 was the first big bankers’ meeting at Zespri and that’s when he along with Zespri Chair John Loughlin, Peter McBride and David Tanner laid out the grim situation.

“Psa has already impacted on the orchard property market and values – we are all now locked in for the ride, faced with a two-year time horizon to find a solution. Psa-V is going to affect grower profitability in the meantime. There will also be a financial impact on growers during the recovery phase,” bankers were told.

“We told the banks the industry’s fate wouldn’t be known until spring 2011.

Bud break and sap flow in spring would show how widespread the infection was and whether or not particular cultivars were more tolerant to the disease,” says John.

It was a sombre and bleak meeting at which growers were told: • Currently 434 Psa-V orchards (18.7% of New Zealand growing area) • 408 located in Te Puke, 14 Tauranga, 3 Katikati, 7 Whakatane, 1 Waihi, 1 Opotiki • 72% of New Zealand kiwifruit hectares now in a Priority Zone • 40% of New Zealand Gold area contains a Psa-V infection • 13% of New Zealand Green area contains a Psa-V infection • In Te Puke 85% of Gold area contains a Psa-V infection; 30% of Green area contains a Psa-V infection The prognosis for Hort 16A vine survival was bleak, the meeting was told.

“This will possibly be the last growing season for most, if not all gold. A high percentage of orchards will not make it through to the 2012 harvest. The likelihood of successfully re-establishing canopy on stumps is not looking good. There is a danger that growers risk “throwing good money after bad” by attempting this. Replanting increasingly appears the best option”.

In the meantime, KVH and Zespri were watching closely “the last man standing” experiment at Plant & Food Research’s orchard at No 1 Rd Te Puke.

“KVH agreed to allow the disease to spread in the research orchard, under strict controls, to determine tolerant varieties. At a meeting around that time we were shown a graph of all the varieties which were dying and the ones looking okay. I asked, “where is Bruno?” There was silence.”

The banks agreed that it would be useful if a financial model was available to assess individual grower scenario options. This would allow the banks to work off the same page when assessing the future viability of their clients. KVH, under Johns direction subsequently developed such a model which calculated the financial impacts of cutting out and grafting to a new variety or total vine removal and replanting. The banks agreed to support growers and the industry but required progress towards recovery to be demonstrated.

Spring 2011 proved even more testing than expected. Early on it had been identified that Psa-V was airborne, but no one had predicted just how influential the “Rena Storm” would be on its spread.

On 5 October, 2011 the container ship Rena went aground in calm weather on Astrolabe Reef while approaching Tauranga Harbour. Strong winds and bad weather on the night of 11 October hastened the ship’s collapse, sending containers and debris, including oil, onto local beaches. Those same winds helped the rapid spread of Psa-V, including onto the No 3 Rd organic orchard owned by John.

“My gold orchard had been looking pretty good however after the storm, it was a total Psa infected mess. I called in the undertakers to cut out the vines and bury them.”

What John describes as “the darkest hour” happened on 27 October 2011 during a meeting at Baypark Stadium . “The growers were grey faced and very stressed.”

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“They had forgotten to evaluate Bruno which was crucial as if Bruno rootstock was not tolerant, we had huge problems. If growers had to remove rootstock and start all over again, the cost would be horrendous, and this may be a bridge too far for the banks. There was a hunch Bruno would be tolerant but when we went into that October meeting with growers, we couldn’t start talking about top working vines because we didn’t know for sure about Bruno.”

“However, by November we had strong indications that Bruno was tolerant, and that the disease did not seem to be progressing on G3. I remember Peter McBride phoning me prior to a crucial meeting with the banks in November saying that we need to put our money on regrafting vines from 16A to G3 in terms of developing a recovery pathway - which is what we did.”

“The bankers were also very stressed. I remember kicking off the meeting and trying to crack the ice by saying that they all look like they have come to a funeral to which a Rabobank representative replied – “no we have come to the wake!”

“That extracted a few laughs where-upon we presented the G3 recovery pathway with the proviso that we had a few more bridges to cross. The banks grasped this piece of positive news with both hands which was the beginning of the turnaround. It was just amazing that G3 was sitting there on the verge of commercialisation and that G9 and G14 had also shown reasonable tolerance.”

Satisfied his job was done, John left KVH in April 2012, and Barry O’Neil was appointed Chief Executive. “I had dealt with the crisis stage and KVH needed to morph into a new steady state. Barry, with his Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and biosecurity background, was the ideal person to take that on, including getting the National Pest Management Plan in place.”

The Psa-V experience is “right up there” in John’s primary industry career. “I was thrown into the breach to get things done, often making decisions on the hoof. I worked with some fantastic people involved with the response, not only KVH directors and staff but Zespri, New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI), post-harvest and growers and made friends for life from that intense experience. It was a valuable life experience for me.”

“Everyone did their part to pull the industry through - it was a total team effort right across the board.”

“The kiwifruit industry is a fantastic industry, and I am confident in its future.

When it comes to biosecurity, the industry is in a better place than before KVH was formed and growers should be grateful for that because there are other threats out there.”

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LAIN JAGER

CRISIS STRENGTHENED INDUSTRY FABRIC One of the completely unexpected consequences of Psa-V was a decisive strengthening of the kiwifruit industry, says Lain Jager, Chief Executive of Zespri in 2010.

“Ironically the Psa crisis strengthened the industry fabric rather than eroding it.”

That outcome was far from obvious in November 2010 and the months that followed.

“Watching growers whose livelihoods were evaporating in front of them; watching the disappearance of their futures; many were 60 years old; this was their retirement. That will live with me forever.”

However, Lain also credits growers with driving the recovery from the vine disease by keeping pressure on those leading the response. “Growers confronted by the crisis pulled together and they used the New Zealand kiwifruit industry ecosystem to ensure the right decisions were made. The determination by New Zealand kiwifruit growers that we were going to find a way to recover left small room for messing about.”

“Their level of forgiveness was not high and only excellent management, performance, timeliness and outstanding communication was acceptable.

That expectation was absolutely up in our faces, and I think probably we all felt like that.”

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“And what it meant was that when leaders got in a room together, we cut through a lot of red tape and we made decisions.”

Among those rapid decisions was to form a Psa-V response fund and ask the government to match it dollar for dollar. “It was decided that we would take $25million out of the balance sheet to provide immediate funding on the basis that it was paid back by the grower pools over time. And then we went to government and said, look, we’ll put in $25million. Will you please match it?”

The meeting which resulted in the government matching that fund was held in the office of Minister for Biosecurity David Carter. “Prime Minister John Key actually popped in to see us and he asked us; “are you going to be able to recover from this? This is not going to be good money after bad is it?” And we said no, we will find a way forward. There was an almost unbelievably prompt government response in a bespoke way.”

In an attempt to eradicate Psa-V, compensation for growers who removed their vines was paid from some of that fund. When it became clear eradication was not possible, the funding was redirected to managing the disease.

“It was about finding out if we can grow in the Psa environment. Hayward green would prove to be one of those varieties which could, although we weren’t always 100% confident with that.”

By December 2010, the new organisation Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) was formed to take over the recovery effort, and that was, says Lain a very good decision.

“It was a high-quality decision, made very quickly, that enabled the sector to say, we’ve got Psa and we need to deal with that. Let’s do everything we can and we’re going to put in place a specialist organisation, to make sure it never happens again.”

“Peter McBride (Deputy Chair of Zespri) and the Zespri Board were decisive in making that determination. I absolutely supported it. I thought it was the right thing to do and I think that’s been borne out over time.”

“We have other examples of centres of excellence within the industry, so the industry was very familiar with the idea that Zespri doesn’t have to do everything and having these centres of excellence makes sense.”

Another crucial decision was to back the newly commercialised gold variety G3 as the pathway to recovery and for that Lain pays tribute to Zespri Director and later first Chairman of KVH, Peter McBride.

“Peter was amazingly technically involved but he also took a lot of political heat and, (with others) fronted the banks. The industry decided G3 was the recovery pathway and Peter fronted that. His personal leadership is a huge part of the legacy Peter left the industry.”

“Peter’s clarity and ability to form that underlying judgment and then lead the rest of us, to accept that and to support it, was decisive and crucial.”

Many may say finding that G3 was tolerant to Psa-V was lucky but Lain says the industry had created much of that luck by investing in plant breeding and research and development with Plant & Food Research. “But it’s still luck, so on the one hand it was single dimensional. On the other hand, it was multidimensional.”

Lain never doubted the industry would pull through Psa-V. “The rule of thumb is that bacterial diseases don’t kill industries, that people do find a way to recover and create a pathway forward. So, at the very high level there was sound room for optimism. Of course, that’s cold comfort for a grower whose vines are dying and people who are cutting out orchards and contending with the collapse of their capital value.”

“The sense of confidence at the high level was not matched by the feelings on the ground with a lot of uncertainty and the immediate financial impacts.”

When Lain received the call from Plant & Food Research on Friday 5 November, 2010 saying Psa-V had been found on a Te Puke orchard, he immediately called the Zespri crisis team into action and informed the Chairman of the Board John Loughlin.

What followed were months of long days, constant meetings and intense focus on finding answers and keeping the industry alive.

“There wasn’t much space for personal reflection. However, it never was about me. It was about the Psa response and the team and what I needed to get through and so in some ways although there was a personal impact, I was insulated because I had a salary.”

“But I was deeply connected to a community of growers who were absolutely in the frying pan from a personal exposure perspective and like the other leaders in the sector, I had a role to play as Zespri Chief Executive..”

“My role was very clear and very defined. It required a certain amount of media and grower facing communications work and a certain amount of conducting the process. That included recommending and enabling decisions by the Zespri Board and government facing work.”

The pressures weren’t all on-shore. Zespri had 1.4 million trays of kiwifruit (1.5% of the crop) on ships destined for key markets which would have required urgent re-routing if markets closed their borders.

“The markets needed to know that this wasn’t a human health issue, it was a vine health issue and the fruit was good and was not going to be affected by Psa.” The Psa-V crisis looms large in the careers of many leaders who lived through it and so it does for Lain. But when it comes to his role at Zespri, Lain says the legal challenge by Turners & Growers to the industry’s single desk marketing status, the failure of importers in China to pay import duties on Zespri kiwifruit and the resulting Serious Fraud Office investigation were personally equally or even more taxing.

“There was more reputational pressure for Zespri from those other events, so although Psa was the most impactful crisis from an industry perspective, Psa wasn’t the most difficult crisis I had been involved with.”

“Because it wasn’t about Zespri’s performance or reputation or anything else, it was about “Oh my gosh, we’ve got a situation. We’re all in the boat together.

We’ve got to do our absolute best to find a solution and find a recovery pathway forward”. And the industry pulled together to deliver just that.” And that, says Lain is very rewarding.

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MEL AULD

GOLDEN TICKET IN BACK POCKET “We had the golden ticket in our back pocket but didn’t know it at the time,” says Mel Auld, Zespri’s Communications Manager in 2010 and member of its Psa-V crisis team.

The “golden ticket” was the new kiwifruit variety G3 (now marketed as Zespri SunGold) which had been released for commercial plantings the same year in which the disease which wiped out its predecessor Hort16A was found on a Te Puke orchard.

That G3 was tolerant to Psa-V and could be grown in the presence of the disease was not immediately apparent and in the months after Psa-V was positively identified for the first time in New Zealand, no one knew what the industry’s future held.

“When I received an afterhours call on Friday 5 November to a meeting at Zespri I knew something serious was going on. It gives me goose bumps now, thinking back,” says Mel. The core crisis management team; Sally Gardiner, Zespri General Manager of Supply Chain and co-ordinator of crisis responses, Paul Rickett a Zespri Project Manager, and Mel were tasked with coordinating the response to the Psa-V threat. They had just a short window in which to form a strategy and gather information before the first media call asking about unusual activity seen on a Te Puke orchard came in on Sunday afternoon.

“The situation required a carefully considered approach to relaying what we knew and what we were working on to help reduce the fear and anxiety among growers, the industry, our markets and the wider Bay of Plenty community.”

“One of the key objectives was to protect the brand internationally and then of course the company objective to eradicate the disease if feasible.”

The priority for Mel as Zespri’s Communications Manager, was to immediately develop initial key messages and a likely questions and answers list for internal use as well as media releases. The second was to liaise with communications managers from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and Plant & Food Research to develop a focussed and coordinated approach to communications.

Minister for Biosecurity David Carter and Barry O’Neil of MAF, flew from Wellington to attend meetings with Zespri, growers, the wider industry and media briefings.

Two-way communications with Zespri growers via direct channels such as the grower-only website, newsletter, emails, face to face meetings once or twice a week and media briefings to inform stakeholders of the evolving situation were put in place.

“For the first time we recorded Chief Executive Lain Jager’s regular updates and made them available on YouTube. Lain is an inspiring communicator. He struck the right balance; was honest if he did not have all the answers, outlining what was being done to get them. That built trust and credibility and settled some of the anxiety.”

There was a risk also to the 1.4 million trays of kiwifruit (1.5% of the crop) on board ships destined for key markets which would have required urgent rerouting if markets closed their borders.

“There was concern when television media in Taiwan reported the issue as one of “poisoned kiwifruit”. We worked to support our Taiwan-based team in organising a correction and dealing with customer concerns, but fortunately there were none.” International fruit sales continued unaffected by the crisis on New Zealand orchards.

“There was quite a lot of pressure from the media to scandalise the crisis, predicting it was the end of the kiwifruit industry. Nobody knew what the outcome would be, and speculation only fuelled greater fear and anxiety. Our core focus was on growers and our community, so we worked hard to move the story away from such an unhelpful and irrelevant focus.”

Mel and the Zespri teams were acutely aware of the toll the disease and an uncertain future was taking on growers.

“Images of vines cut out and holes dug to throw them in heighten the sense of tragedy. These were not just bits of wood going into a hole. They were plants growers had nurtured and were their livelihood. The sense of empathy was strong and for our team, being able to put ourselves in the shoes of growers was important to understand the significance of the pain being felt.”

Despite uncertainty, there was no sense of giving up. “The industry was committed to get through the crisis and we did, thanks to industry unity, compassion for fellow human beings, grit and determination.”

“I was humbled by growers, including Russell West on whose orchard the disease was first identified, who came forward and spoke publicly about their situation. By doing so they potentially put themselves in a vulnerable position where they could be attacked by others in the industry or the media.”

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“A big driver was to reduce the pressure on fellow growers. In effect they said; “I’ll step forward so you don’t have to”. That was a really powerful reflection of the brotherhood and sisterhood within the industry where neighbours are not competitors but can come together in the face of a common threat. This is probably not seen in horticulture anywhere else in the world.”

During the first two and a half weeks, Psa-V and the future of the kiwifruit industry were subjected to intense industry and media attention, requiring 24/7 response.

“The longest day I remember was 22 hours,” says Mel. “Among my fond memories are of the team of ‘fairies’ who looked after us. You would turn around after working intensely to find beautiful food, smoothie drinks, all nourishing goodness to keep the team going. We often didn’t see who brought the food but were so grateful for their support. In a crisis every member of the team plays a critical role, and it was so heart-warming in how it unfolded in a natural non-forced way.”

That support came from the Mount Maunganui community too, including from House of Travel which set up a coffee cart with free coffee for Zespri staff.

Mel was fortunate too in the support she enjoyed at home. “I am incredibly lucky to have such a supportive husband in Bran. Our son Max was one at the time and as soon as it became apparent what was going on with Psa-V I said I would not be around for a wee while. Bran stepped up and supported me. I did not have to worry or think too much about what was going on around the household.”

The Psa-V crisis also brought Mel closer to her colleagues. “We were fighting for the survival of our industry and that changed the dynamics.

We came to know each other on a whole other level and I forged some very deep relationships with my work mates.”

Mel also learned how to go without sleep. “I was surprised at my resilience. It’s amazing what the human body and mind is capable of in a crisis and how far we can push ourselves. However, a key learning was taking responsibility for yourself. When you need to have sleep say so, do not wait until you fall over or make mistakes because you can’t afford that. Own your state and be willing to let people know your needs come first. You can’t be in service to others if you let yourself fall over.”

For Mel, as for so many people, the Psa-V crisis was gruelling, stressful and emotional but she has no regrets about being part of it all. “Absolutely not. I learnt so much and gained so much personally. It was truly a life changing experience.”

Mel went on to become Zespri’s Global Marketing Manager, a change in career direction she credits partly to the market and team exposure gained through the Psa-V experience.

MEL AULD Mel and her communications team took immense satisfaction for having played a role in helping the kiwifruit industry navigate through, and successfully recover from the Psa-V crisis. Having their work recognised by their peers nationally was a bonus. The Zespri team won the supreme award and the corporate public relations category award for rapid and clear communication during the Psa-V outbreak in the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand’s PRINZ Awards 2011.

Chief judge Gordon Chesterman said the project impressed the judges with its clear and timely messages. “It was about uniting people in a difficult and challenging time. It was about protecting the business and its reputation.”

The supreme award was chosen as the best entry from the nine category award winners. “The winning campaigns demonstrated the value public relations brings to the business table by using strategic planning and creative thinking to achieve results in challenging situations,” said PRINZ president Jane Dodd.

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MIKE CHAPMAN

HANDLING A CRISIS – ONE STEP AT A TIME MIKE CHAPMAN 72

“One step at a time. Panic doesn’t work.” That’s the advice for how to handle a crisis from Mike Chapman, New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI) Chief Executive in 2010 when Psa-V was discovered in Te Puke.

His other advice: “Have a written plan – one that’s flexible and adaptable and look after everyone including yourself.”

In his NZKGI role Mike was among the first responders when the vine disease was identified in November 2010. He subsequently became an inaugural board member and secretary for Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH), formed later that year to take over management of the response to the disease on the industry’s behalf.

That meant Mike was following several plans, and ones which kept changing. NZKGI’s primary roles were ensuring orchardists had the most up to date information available about the disease and making sure there was a robust network looking after grower and community welfare.

The industry quickly adopted the common goal of no suicides as a result of the Psa crisis. “This was a tough goal, but it forced everyone to focus on what we had to achieve and as far as we know there were no lives lost to suicide because of Psa.” “I give full credit to Ian Greaves who led the welfare response. Once it was apparent support would be needed for growers and the wider community, there was no hesitation and people helped in every way they could. I also give credit to the NZKGI Forum and committee members, Peter Ombler our leader and President and the very dedicated and hardworking team in the NZKGI office.”

When Mike walked from the NZKGI office at Mount Maunganui, down the road to KVH, he “changed hats” to fit its largely operational response which included working with growers, the then Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), Plant & Food scientists, Zespri and the post-harvest sector to find ways to combat Psa. “Ten years on the outcome is amazing. Who would have expected the industry to come back stronger?

It’s a great story to be told of a highly successful industry which has recovered from near disaster, from riches to rags and back again.”

“It was very full on, a very hard time but in the end, very rewarding to have been part of helping our growing community have a future, be able to stay on their land and get out of a very difficult situation.”

Mike says it’s almost impossible to accurately prepare for a crisis. “It’s the nature of a crisis that it never happens when you have time or the resources to cope.”

Usually there’s little time to act or respond and often there is not enough reliable information on which to make decisions. All that and more was true for the Psa outbreak.

However, using what they did know, and sensed would be needed, Mike and Ian Greaves compiled a 16-point ‘day one’ action plan which, along with welfare strategies, has become a template for other industries and organisations facing crises.

“Things happened lightning fast. Almost overnight orchard values dropped, some below their mortgage value which was pretty shocking.”

Fears that desperate growers may do desperate things brought suicide prevention into sharp focus but few people in the industry had training in mental health welfare. “Otago University had a programme on suicide prevention, and we put frontline people through that which was immensely helpful in dealing with anyone struggling or considering taking their own lives.”

NZKGI, as a levy funded body, with a small number of staff and limited financial resources, was fully committed to the task ahead.

“We had a lot of help from volunteers and from support organisations. There was some funding from MAF and a charitable society which growers who could, did contribute to, to help those less fortunate. Everyone in the industry became part of the response. It was not just one or two. It was a widespread industrybased response and that is why it succeeded.”

The single desk structure helped. “Because of the Single Point of Entry (SPE) the industry was used to collaborating and working together in normal times. More than that I think it’s a Kiwi thing, especially in rural communities which support each other and that was a real strength.”

Community networks were key to the welfare response. “Things that worked well for us were organising low key social events for growers, getting an expert from organisations such as Lifeline to talk briefly about managing stress and then leaving time for growers to chat. Having people visit anyone who had not been seen and sending out information with numbers to contact for help was also important.”

In Te Puke the pastors from The Orchard Church were employed to help with outreach as they knew local people and neighbours were encouraged to check on neighbours. Workshops run by financial advisors were organised and cash flow statements were provided by John Burke, General Manager of KVH, to assist growers when dealing with their banks.

“We managed, but there were pretty tough days when we had to grit our teeth and keep going. As we had advised growers, we also had to have plans for ourselves. It was a salutary lesson to make ourselves take breaks for exercise, food and rest. To help the industry we had to look after ourselves, because if we did not get through, we would not be able to help those we set out to assist.”

Mike says in the industry’s hour of need so many people stood up to help. “KVH put together an impressive team. I have not a bad word to say about anyone involved. They all pulled together to save the industry and were amazing.”

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NATALIE MILNE

MAPS MARKED SILENT ‘ENEMY’S’ ADVANCE The Isabel Fraser room at Zespri’s headquarters resembled a military command centre in December 2010. The walls were lined with maps studded with coloured pins tracking the ‘enemy’s’ advance and the atmosphere was sombre.

The ‘enemy’ was silent, invisible when on the move, and as the clusters of pins grew, apparently unstoppable. In its path were kiwifruit orchards, their owners terrified that they were about to lose everything.

Among those in the “war room” was Natalie Milne, Zespri’s Human Resources Manager, brought in after the first few frantic weeks of the outbreak of Psa-V to take charge of the next stage of the response.

“I was in a meeting in Wellington when I got called back and asked to step into the response, to enable Zespri staff who had been fully involved with Psa to get back to their day jobs and to facilitate taking the response from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and into Zespri.”

“I was involved in the response for a relatively short period of time, and I found it incredibly challenging because we knew what growers and the industry were facing, and they were still yet to realise the full extent and impacts of what was to come.”

Natalie’s role was to manage the operational response to Psa-V and aid the transition to the new organisation, Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) which in 2020 is a leading biosecurity organisation dedicated to supporting the New Zealand kiwifruit industry.

It may have been Natalie who came up with KVH’s full name which so accurately, and positively captures its role, but she believes it was a group decision.

However, Natalie was undoubtably the driver behind the name and logo associated with management of Psa-V - “Check, Clean, Control” which focused on the health of the vines. “We had to maintain the health of our vines if the industry was to survive, so it had to be about the vines.”

“There was some resistance towards using the vine in the logo because people were worried it might put a negative context on it but I insisted that it was the plant material that was the biggest risk to the industry. If we didn't use the vine, we would be taking away from what was one of the most important aspects of controlling the disease.”

Initially the aim was eradication and growers were being compensated to cut out infected vines, while those in the Isabel Fraser room tried to predict where it would strike next.

“We had maps on the walls with drawing pins marking infected orchards, updated when the latest results came through.”

Natalie clearly remembers when John Burke, (who late in 2010 was appointed General Manager of KVH) saw a pin marking his orchard as infected. “That was horrible. No one was exempt.”

“We began looking at the weather patterns of the last few days or the last 24 hours, overlaying that on the maps to predict where it was going next.”

Useful though that was, it also brought the realisation that nothing was going to stop the spread of the airborne Psa-V spores.

“We very quickly realised that our ability to control it was going to be virtually impossible. So, we had to decide what to do next. Infected plant material was identified as the highest risk and we had to get rid of it, and then it was, well, how do we do that? What if we cut all these orchards out? What would we do with the plants? How do you destroy them?”

Incinerating vines at a central point was considered but that raised issues of resource consent, and transport. A landowner in the Waikato offered his property as a disposal site, but trucking plant material through the Bay of Plenty caused an outcry so that was stopped. In the end, most growers had huge pits dug on their orchards to bury the vines.

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Orchards became places of restricted entry, and growers and contractors, indeed anyone visiting orchards were required to clean their footwear and vehicles and any equipment, including pruning gear.

Shane Max, Zespri’s Global Production Manager was among those who visited growers faced with removing their vines. “He did an incredible job. I went out with him a few times and it was not easy.

There were a range of responses from growers.

The implications of having Psa and cutting out their vines were so significant. We saw everything from denial, to anger, to despair to those who were motivated to do the right thing.”

Although they weren’t orchardists, Natalie says the Zespri staff and everyone on her team was committed to saving the industry. “We were worried for growers. Watching growers realising what they were dealing with; it was a very unpleasant time.”

Psa-V couldn’t be controlled without the buy in of growers so timely and factual communications were essential. “Unlike today, many growers didn’t have cellphones or even email addresses, some didn’t use computers, so we printed and handed out thousands of pieces of paper with information.”

Information of another kind was flooding into the response team from people who believed they had the “silver bullet” to cure Psa-V. Many of the solutions were pretty weird but those which had some promise were investigated.

“From an innovation point of view, there were so many things that had to be considered and not discounted. We had to look at all the different options and possibilities because there was never going to be a single answer - no one panacea.”

Despite how serious Psa-V was Natalie always believed the industry would pull through.

“I never lost hope.”

On 19 November 2010, another disaster helped put the kiwifruit industry’s plight into perspective for Natalie. “We were in a meeting when news came through of an explosion in the Pike River Mine on the West Coast of the South Island, which had killed 29 men.”

“I thought, things are really bad for our growers but no one has died in our industry and its full of people committed to finding a way through, and because of that I never lost hope that the kiwifruit industry would survive.”

NATALIE MILNE Ensuring the industry did endure was not just about the immediate response to Psa-V but also forming strategies to manage future incursions. To that end Natalie began work on a pest management strategy which would give KVH direction and powers to act to protect the industry.

Before she had time to complete that project, Natalie’s role in the Psa-V response came to an end when she was appointed as one of Zespri’s Global Marketing Managers in 2011. By then KVH was in place with a small team of staff and John Burke as General Manager.

Natalie’s skill sets were ideal for the role she played. She had been involved in the horticultural industry since the 1990s, much of that time working on and delivering certification systems and compliance management.

“I think I'm the sort of person who never says never and has a don't give up kind of attitude.” All attributes the kiwifruit industry desperately needed from her as a leader at the height of the Psa-V crisis.

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PETER MCBRIDE

OUR ABILITY TO WORK TOGETHER IS OUR STRENGTH Creating a Psa-V recovery strategy was like trying to fly a plane while building it, says Peter McBride, Kiwifruit Vine Health’s (KVH) first Chairman.

In 2010, not only was the disease moving quickly through orchards and growing regions but also, very little was known about how to combat it.

“Zespri set up whiteboards to outline everything we knew about the disease which filled less than one board. Everything we didn’t know filled the other three.”

“We were flying blind. Even though we had been observing what was happening in Italy, we weren’t sure how the disease would behave with the big weather events we have in spring and autumn and more generally a windier and wetter environment.”

Peter was a Zespri Director when the Board, under the chairmanship of John Loughlin, asked him to lead the newly formed KVH, set up to administer the $50million recovery fund and lead the response to Psa-V. “From a KVH perspective it was not the time for normal governance processes, management was still accountable, but the linkages were much flatter, and directors were a lot more involved, which is what happens in a crisis. I acknowledge all those who put their hands up to help, and the industry was fortunate to have willing people there at the time they were needed.”

However, it wasn’t only the vine disease the recovery team was battling. The very best and the very worst of human behaviour manifested during the crisis.

Talking about the impacts of Psa-V and the struggle for recovery is still emotional for Peter. He experienced the pain and grief of growers both through his leadership role and very personally too.

“Some people didn’t actively look for Psa-V because those who had it became like leppers in the community. I really struggled with how some folks treated others.”

While many were committed to overcoming Psa-V, others also saw the crisis as an opportunity to attack the industry’s single desk structure. “We were fighting the disease and a rear-guard action trying to destabilise the industry too.”

But even the most unpleasant behaviour didn’t deter Peter and the KVH and wider industry teams battling the disease from their commitment to pull the industry back from the brink. And key to doing that was optimism.

Remaining positive in the face of a crisis Peter describes as; “like driving down a big, long tunnel with no light at the end”, wasn’t easy, nor was coping with the reactions of some growers. But the crisis team understood that was part of the grieving cycle many in the industry were experiencing – of shock, denial, blame, anxiety, anger and depression.

“That’s why pastoral care was so important, and Ian Greaves and his team did a stunning job in that area. There’s an old saying that without hope the people perish. So, we had to remain optimistic and find a solution.”

A crucial starting point that set the industry on the pathway ahead was when John Loughlin and Lain Jager (Zespri Chief Executive) went to Wellington to convince the government to put up $25million, to be matched by the industry, as a fighting fund.

“We initially thought Psa-V could be contained but given that it is an airborne disease and with the prevailing hygiene practices in the industry at the time, that was pretty challenging.”

Although Zespri was heavily involved in the initial response, Peter says it was important that it step back to concentrate on its core role as a marketer of kiwifruit, and that the dedicated organisation, KVH, take over the response. The legacy of that decision is that KVH continues to operate as a leading biosecurity organisation dedicated to supporting the New Zealand kiwifruit industry.

The then Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, which initially led the response, wanted to hand it over to the industry, once it appeared containment wasn’t possible.

“Dave Tanner (at the time Zespri General Manager Science and Innovation) and I wouldn’t let them. We made them wait because it appeared, from grower observations and photos they were sending, that there were two strains of Psa and we wanted to be sure of what we were dealing with. It became apparent we had been living with a less virulent strain of Psa.” When the Psa-V response was handed to KVH in 2011 it had no legal authority to carry out many of the actions required, because a National Pest Management Strategy was not yet in place.

“We had to encourage growers to do what was asked of them as we could not compel anyone to do anything. That may have been a good thing because growers bought into it voluntarily.”

One of the mistakes made at the time was to cut out 12 hectares of green kiwifruit. “In hindsight, that shouldn’t have been done but we made sure those growers were not disadvantaged in the long term.”

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PETER MCBRIDE

The impact on growers was disparate. At its extreme were gold growers who had grafted 16A on to chinensis rootstock and were removing whole plants. “A dairy industry analogy is it was like sending a truck and trailer load of mature cows away each week and replacing them with four-day old calves – that was the impact on your income.”

The gold variety G3, marketed as Zespri SunGold, proved to be the industry’s saviour but Peter says no one person can take the credit for its adoption by the industry, nor its success.

In fact, he attributes a group of growers throughout the country with identifying G3’s tolerance to Psa-V, and their push to have it commercialised.

“At Zespri roadshows in August 2011, growers were publicly calling for G3 to be commercialised and 17 of them had been collecting budwood and grafting onto Bruno rootstock, which was becoming reinfected as it regenerated.”

“One of the most powerful things which came from all this was the power of grower observation. They were looking at and watching what the plants were doing and noting what events led to disease spread.

They could see the degree to which vines were tolerant and the impacts management techniques had on plant health.”

“That’s powerful because science often follows observation, not leads it. When we did recommend G3 as the viable pathway forward as part of the recovery package, that decision was primarily weighted on what had been observed in the field because there was little science available in 2011 to make those decisions.”

G3 is a variety developed in partnership by Zespri and Plant & Food Research, but Peter says if there had been another, even more tolerant and commercially robust variety, no matter who it belonged to, that would have been recommended by KVH instead. “Our focus was on saving the kiwifruit industry and all those affected by it.”

Despite what some believe, G3 was not bred to be tolerant to Psa-V. It had been part of the breeding programme since the early 2000s and had been commercialised when the disease manifested.

“Some say the industry was lucky to have G3, but I say you make your own luck, and the industry did that through its breeding programme. SunGold is one of the most astonishing fruit cultivars worldwide.”

The official drive for recovery and solutions to managing Psa were led by KVH, in partnership with research organisations but Peter also acknowledges the work of Task Force Green (TFG), the joint venture between EastPack and Seeka, set up to try to find better longer-term protectants than the spraying regime recommendations made by KVH. They also developed a rapid test and provided the services of VSL (Verified Lab Services) as well as seeking to establish the source of Psa-V. “They were able to do things we couldn’t, and they challenged us at times, but on reflection, that wasn’t a bad thing.”

“I strongly believe that the co-operative nature and structure of this industry was an imperative success factor in overcoming the Psa threat. Whilst there is risk within more controlled decision making, this would have played out very differently in a fragmented industry. Our ability to work together is our strength.”

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PETER OMBLER

CLEAR MINDS AND STIFF SPINES NEEDED Imagine an invisible, silent bush fire spreading rapidly across the Bay of Plenty. Its fuel is not gum trees but the vines of the gold kiwifruit Hort16A and while they exist, there’s no stopping it.

That’s how Peter Ombler described the spread of the disease Psa-V during the height of the crisis in 2010.

“We could never put the fire out – it’s still smouldering today, but once Hort16A vines were removed we could manage it. To try to explain how removing the vines would work, especially when talking to government officials or people outside the industry, I used the analogy of the Australian bush fires.”

As President of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI), Peter was among leaders fighting that ‘fire’ on behalf of the kiwifruit industry and also on the orchard he and wife Gwen own at Welcome Bay. He knew Psa was serious. In August 2010 Peter attended an international kiwifruit conference in Italy and saw first-hand how Psa-V was devastating kiwifruit orchards there.

“I knew we did not want that disease in New Zealand. When I got home, I began beating the drum loudly in various forums saying we had to sharpen our biosecurity focus.

“Then I got a phone call from Sally Gardiner (Chair of Zespri’s crisis team) to say Psa had been found in Te Puke.” That was in November 2010. Even as Peter “beat his drums” to keep it out, the disease was probably already in New Zealand.

“Who knows how long it had been here? It’s the sort of disease that can be sitting at a very low threshold until weather conditions, including hailstorms, give it the launch needed or it may have come more recently. Either way it manifested itself big time in 2010.”

What also manifested for Peter was the need to step forward, along with so many others, to lead the response. “Clear minds and stiff spines were needed.

We had to work together and not fragment. There is no room for ego in a crisis.

You can’t think of yourself. You have to think of the greater good. The kiwifruit industry was incredibly fortunate in that we had the right people at the right time – people prepared to stand up.”

The industry response consumed almost every one of Peter’s waking hours – and many sleepless nights too. “There were times when I felt under a lot of pressure, but I never truly believed we wouldn’t make it through in some shape or form. I probably gave a stronger outer perspective of that confidence in public than at times I felt.”

“I just knew in my heart that I had a key responsibility. I was fortunate to have a lot of good people around me, especially my wife Gwen who was always there.

But at home I was often preoccupied and very busy.”

Peter admits to being, by nature, an optimist with little time for negativity but even so Psa tested his optimism. “It is far better to use energy positively and that’s what I tried to do.”

Within the industry people were feeling helpless, angry, stressed, and uncertain and questioning whether or not there was a future for themselves and their industry.

Peter realised how important it was for growers to be actively involved in combating Psa. He was not among the assigned speakers at one early grower meeting but decided to take to the stage anyway and speak as a grower to growers.

“I said, growers, none of us wants this but it is what it is, and everyone must take responsibility for their own biosecurity. We need to protect our own orchard’s borders; we have to work our way through this. Have a plan. That plan might change but you can’t just sit and feel helpless. A plan is empowering.”

Peter says it is of great credit to the leadership of Ian Greaves that the industry did not lose one grower to suicide during the crisis. “Ian and the pastoral care team he led focused on giving growers hope when there might have seemed to be none. The positive results of that work are remarkable.”

While Ian and his team focused on welfare, Peter’s focus was more on the operational response to the disease, talking to growers, fronting media, liaising with Zespri, Government ministers and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF).

The then Minister for Biosecurity, David Carter showed strong support for the industry. Peter accompanied Zespri Chairman John Loughlin and Zespri Chief Executive Lain Jager to a meeting with Minister Carter to ask the government to match, dollar for dollar, the $25million recovery package Zespri industry had put together.

“While we were in David Carter’s office, Prime Minister John Key walked in, sat down and listened to what we were saying. Almost overnight the government put up $25million.”

With the $50million package, the industry and MAF initially set about trying to eradicate Psa by compensating growers to cut out diseased Hort16A vines. “We were burning through $50million like there was no tomorrow. The disease is spread by airborne spores and they were going everywhere.”

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By the time Peter joined the newly formed Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) Board in 2011 it was obvious to him that paying compensation had to end. “We had to retain that money to fight a smarter battle. It was not a popular decision, but it was the right decision.”

However, Peter is convinced attempting to eradicate Psa as a first step was also right. “The industry needed to see us try to eradicate it, even if it didn’t work. We needed to go through that to demonstrate eradication was no longer possible and we needed to move to managing it.”

Managing it included cutting out the once lucrative gold Hort16A vines. “It’s of great credit to the resolve of growers to react quickly to remove Hort16A. We got the inoculum load down so fast it enabled the industry to move forward and transition to the new gold G3.”

However, the road to that transition was long, painful and fraught with uncertainty. With gold kiwifruit orchards worth up to $450,000 a hectare dropping to bareland value within weeks, banks became nervous.

“The rapid spread of the disease worked in our favour in a strange way because banks realised they didn’t want to be orchardists and with the industry’s plan to graft to the more tolerant variety G3, held off foreclosing on their clients. I think only a handful of growers were unfortunately forced to sell.”

PETER OMBLER In 2020 Peter returned to being “just an orchardist” though holding some board directorate positions too. Psa is no longer front of mind and he doesn’t reflect on it often. When he does, especially with those he worked so closely with, he can become emotional.

“When you pour yourself into something like that, there is a cost but equally you get the chance to grow personally. Relationships formed under adversity create strong, lifelong friendships. I’d never wish the impacts of Psa on anyone, any industry, but I have no regrets about being involved in it. Would I do it all again? Absolutely.”

Peter’s outstanding leadership and contributions to the kiwifruit industry were recognised by the Insignia of a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) awarded to him in 2013 and horticulture’s premier award, the Bledisloe Cup, at the Horticulture New Zealand Conference in 2017.

Horticulture New Zealand President Julian Raine said, in presenting the cup, that Peter had taken a lead role on critical issues, including Psa, for the benefit of all kiwifruit growers.

“After Psa was discovered in Te Puke in November 2010, Peter applied his orchard knowledge to the search for solutions. He was a member of KVH, the organisation set up to address the Psa outbreak and was its second Chairman.

Peter subsequently moved KVH from a Psa focus to acting for the kiwifruit industry on all biosecurity risks.”

As president of NZKGI, Peter was also instrumental in retaining the kiwifruit industry’s single desk status. “Peter has shown effective leadership for growers and has steered the industry through two critical crises that could have destroyed the kiwifruit industry as it is today. He is well respected by growers, industry leaders, and the Government.”

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SHANE MAX

NOBLE GROWERS HELPED INDUSTRY IN BATTLE

He knew them quite well and he was just great. He reinforced the need and reassured them, and then they agreed. Arrangements were made to cut out their orchard before the compensation model was in place. It was a big, big commitment to the greater good of the industry. It was very noble.”

While there were some growers who were resistant to removing vines, Shane says many others wanted to do the right thing. “The industry would never have managed the recovery it did without that really strong sense of community.”

Asking growers to remove vines, often ones which showed no symptoms, was extremely hard. “After a vine gets infected it takes about two weeks before it shows symptoms. So, to actually control it, you’ve got to cut out nonsymptomatic vines.”

Work carried out in Italy by Callum Kay, Zespri Grower and Supply Manager Europe, had demonstrated how big the buffer zone needed to be around infected vines. “Ten vines might be showing symptoms but actually you had to cut out 50 vines or more to form a big circle around the infected site because you knew that within 10 days or so they would all be showing symptoms.”

“But it was incredibly hard for growers to cut out a vine that wasn’t showing any symptoms, and so that was one of the big challenges, particularly before the money was available.”

Soon after Psa-V being identified on a Te Puke orchard in November 2010, the industry put up a $25million fund, matched by the government. Initially that was used to pay compensation to growers who removed vines.

“However, we couldn’t get ahead of Psa; it was such a big job. The fact that testing took time and was throwing up unexplainable results didn’t help the turmoil.”

“Noble” is the word Shane Max uses to describe the kiwifruit growers who agreed early in the Psa-V crisis to cut out their infected vines, despite compensation not being guaranteed.

“I pay tribute to those Hort16A growers who, even though the subsidy was not in place, said yes to vine removal. They understood the consequences of not reacting quickly and I give full credit to them for what they did for the wider industry good,” says Shane, Zespri’s Global Production Manager.

Making that decision wasn’t easy. “It was a time of intense emotion for us all. The growers knew they had to cut their orchards out, but it was their livelihood. These are normal Kiwi blokes; good guys and they knew it was the right thing to do.”

“We also knew from our overseas experience the urgency of getting those vines out. Psa-V was spreading so quickly through their orchards.”

“I still remember the day I went to one orchard and the owners were in a very emotional state realising things were out of control despite their best efforts.

Tony Hawken, Chief Executive of their post-harvest supplier EastPack arrived.

“Fearing the removal of compensation, some growers were desperate to get me on their orchards to find Psa symptoms and were actually quite pleased that they got a positive test. This meant they could cut their vines out and get the money. In the end that stopped when it was decided not to spend all the funds on compensation because we were losing the battle.”

However, as Psa continued to spread, growers in the Bay of Plenty and regions still had to be convinced to start preventative practices and that removing symptomatic and non-symptomatic vines in infected Hort16A orchards was necessary.

Sonia Whiteman who has a Bachelor of Horticultural Science with honours and a PhD in plant pathology and Shane formed a “Tag Team” touring the country holding grower meetings. Shane delivered the bad news about Psa-V and Sonia presented the techniques to manage it. It was in this role that Shane received the nickname “Doctor Death”.

“I got called that because I would tell growers all about how bad Psa-V was in Europe, informing them and sort of trying to scare them into action.

I’ve since learned from my extension science reading, that isn’t very effective. You don’t actually try to frighten people into action.

If you scare people too much, they don’t do anything anyway.”

Something that did work were the “Three Wise Men” videos. “Te Puke growers Robbie Ellison, Ken Edkins and Barry Roderick were recruited to make a video series about how they managed their orchards. They demonstrated that the good practices we were advocating did hold Psa at low levels although it required very high management.”

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“We called them the Three Wise Men because their management was top notch. We developed a video series of them talking about their practices and what they had done. They openly shared how difficult it was to manage Psa, but they followed our good advice and had gone through to take a second crop of Hort16A.” The trio became role models for other growers to follow, especially around cutting out infected vines and canes and the application of sprays. The influence this knowledge had on applying these practices to Gold3 once cutover started was key to getting Gold3 through the early days.

Even with the best management, it became apparent Hort16A was no longer viable but not everyone was prepared to accept it had to be replaced. “We even had some “experts” saying it was nothing to worry about and would all be over in no time. Fortunately, we had very capable scientists like Joel Vanneste, a bacteriologist at Plant & Food Research. He had had experience in Europe with us and had a way of taking complex science and conveying it in language growers could understand.”

“We likely spent millions trying to find ways to control Psa, but basically the message that KVH has today is 80% of what Joel recommended in Italy in 2009. Yes, we’ve refined what we do but fundamentally it’s spray copper and bactericides as preventative sprays, cut out diseased material and practice orchard hygiene!”

“She said that the next morning they were planning a delineation survey in orchards where they were going to pick samples of any leaves which had spots.

Between 70 or 100 industry personnel were arranged to go to all those orchards, but the sample bags were not organised. Something like 10,000 zip-lock bags were required,” says Shane.

Shane’s solution was to ring Annette Marsh at Zespri’s headquarters saying: “I need 10,000 zip lock bags. She got her team out and they went around every supermarket that was still open and explained the situation. The next morning there were these boxes and boxes of bags sitting on and around her desk. When the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) team walked in they couldn’t believe that in the space of two hours and so close to closing time we managed to get all those bags. They didn’t have any inkling of how our industry is so very united and coordinated.”

Shane looks back on the Psa-V crisis with mixed feelings. He wishes the disease never made it to New Zealand. “So many growers had their whole lives turned upside down. Their dreams, their aspiration of the future for their family or their daughters or their sons threatened.”

But from those dark days came some positives. “The crisis brought the industry together in a kind of comradeship, a sense of family belonging with a mutual support network trying to find answers and look after each other. It’s also a global community of Zespri growers, technical advisors and scientists now.”

“That is pretty cool, and within the primary sector I think it’s very rare.” Shane hopes the industry he has so much passion for never loses those attributes which make it so special and which will help it navigate any future crisis.

One of the breakthroughs with agrichemical sprays came from half a world away where Zespri employee in France, Severine Brun decided to try out autumn applications of Bion (Actigard) to vines. “The chemical companies in New Zealand like Grochem, Syngenta, and Dupont were very supportive, but our Zespri Global Supply business allowed us to utilise two growing seasons in one year.”

“The French team undertook a lot of field trials but the real special one was the autumn trial. We found disease expression was much lower the following spring. It was a small trial that actually made a huge difference to controlling Psa. We would have got round to testing it here, but the fact we could do it there, which because of the northern hemisphere seasons, was six months ahead of us was a huge help.”

That the industry came through the worst of the Psa-V crisis and ultimately returned to profitability is a huge credit to so many people right across the sector, says Shane. “Everyone played a role, and the willingness to help was fantastic.”

One example of that desire to help was demonstrated early in the response to Psa-V, when Zespri staff bought up almost the entire stock of ziplock bags held by Tauranga and Mount Maunganui supermarkets.

They did so in response to a call from Shane who, at around 6pm was driving back from a meeting in Katikati with a biosecurity officer.

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SUE GROENEWALD & NEILL MALCON

PSA-V DETECTIVES IN ACTION ON ORCHARDS In 2010 the ‘Psa-V detectives’ honed their skills to the point where they could predict where the disease would be found in an orchard and how it got there.

Those ‘detectives’ were members of Zespri’s grower liaison team, tasked with helping with the response to the disease, assisting with grower welfare and communications and later the transition to the new gold variety G3.

“You would go into an orchard and see Psa-V in just one row, and you could put it down to pruners who had not cleaned their secateurs. In another row you could see that it was there as a result of dirty grafting tools,” says Sue Groenewald, Zespri Grower Liaison Manager.

A hole in the shelter of an infected orchard would point the way to an incursion next door, where the spores had blown through the opening, says Neill Malcon, former Zespri Industry Liaison Manager. As time progressed, the disease was distressingly easy to find.

“If you wanted to find Psa, the first places you went were the coldest parts of the orchard or the area with the worst shelter from the prevailing wind.”

Sue and Neill say growers wanted to know how the disease arrived in their orchards. “We were like detectives at some point. Between us and Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) we did a lot of investigation work to find the source in each case.

Was it weather related? Where did the pruners and grafters come from?”

“What machinery had come in and out of the orchard? There was a pattern you could find a lot of the time, so you knew how it came into that orchard,” says Sue. Helping growers through the tough decisions ahead, including vine removal, was also the role of Neill, Sue and the rest of the liaison team including Dave Buckley, Roger Hoebers and Dave Smith who Neill asked to return to the Zespri team to help out. Leisha Thompson, the team’s assistant, played a big role in coordinating orchard visits and day-to-day tasks.

In stark contrast to a few months earlier, industry confidence hit the lowest of lows as the disease spread. “Back before Psa we were feeling positive because in June that year Zespri had released G3. Our team was at the forefront of that work because we were in charge of all the trials,” says Sue. “One of our main roles was getting growers on board to grow G3. We were giving out budwood and distributing it to all the growers who were accepted that year. So, we were on a real high.”

Neill says everything was looking extremely positive. “I can recall the Friday when we found we had Psa. Our team had just completed one week at Trinity Orchards which was growing the three new varieties, giving anyone interested the chance to look at the varieties and to learn a little bit about their growing traits. And we had more than 1000 growers there.”

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SUE GROENEWALD

“It was a big week. I was heading home when I got a phone call from Simon Limmer (Chief Operating Officer for Zespri). He asked me to pull over and broke the news that Psa-V had been positively identified on a Te Puke orchard and could I be there at 8 o’clock the next morning? Shane Max and I met with the owners and their consultant the next day.”

As part of that visit, nearby orchards were inspected for any sign of Psa. “There was no real evidence apart from what we’d already seen, but it was only weeks after that it started to show up on some of those blocks. So, our whole job turned around to focus on Psa and educating and supporting growers.”

Neill says Dave Buckley really stood out at that time. “Dave was a very patient fellow who would sit and just listen to the growers who were having problems. He did more listening than talking, but it certainly helped, and he would point them in the right direction for help on many occasions.”

Sue says that kind and attentive listening was essential. “A lot of these growers were ‘manly men’ and nothing really got to them, until they saw what was happening to their plants and how quickly Psa was spreading.”

Because of their wide connections within the industry Sue, Neill and the team were personally affected by the impacts of Psa-V, over and above their professional roles.

“When I started as a Grower Liaison Manager Neill teamed me up with a grower as my mentor and he was fantastic. I learned a lot from him. He called me when Psa was going through his orchard. All I heard was crying on the phone. He was absolutely broken. In the end he did sell his orchard. It was so sad.”

It was because she cared so much about grower welfare, that Sue carried out an act of authorised ‘vandalism’. What incensed her was a photo, published in the Bay of Plenty Times, of a security guard next to a sign which clearly identified an orchard name.

“The media were circling like flies to find infected orchards and people were also trying to hunt them down. I rang the owner and said your sign has been put in the media. He was away so I said I’m going to take a sledgehammer and take out your sign. Are you okay with it? So, I went and took out the sign.”

NEILL MALCON Budwood for new varieties also became caught up in speculation about how the disease was transferred. “Some people thought moving budwood around the country was the cause of the spread of Psa. What gave us some confidence was that new varieties growing in the South Island didn’t have Psa and those orchards received the same budwood as everyone else,” says Sue. “The bulk of the wood came from one orchard and was distributed all over the country and there are areas still today that haven’t got Psa,” says Neill.

Another reason for confidence was what was learned when the owners of a trial block of G3 almost sacrificed their vines to find out how heavily they could be infected with Psa and still survive. “There were people who did some very unselfish things to help the industry through that time,” says Neill.

There were lighter moments too, including when Sue received a phone call from a woman saying; “I’ve caught it. I’ve caught it”.

“I said you’ve caught what? And she said; I’ve caught that thing you’ve got, that Psa. It’s under a jar on my bench”.

“I explained Psa was a bacterial disease not an insect and the caller said; “what’s this thing I caught in my jar then?” I said I didn’t know, thanked her for the call and hung up.”

Ten years on the memories of working through the crisis are strong for both Neill and Sue. “To go through something like that, from vines dying to coming out where we are today is pretty mind blowing,” says Sue. “I was always optimistic that we would get through because there was just so much going on and so many people trying to find solutions and help.”

Neill shared that cautious optimism. “But times were tough for everyone in the business. There are good memories, of the friends made and the unification of the industry. Without a single desk we wouldn’t have had that.”

Neill also sounds a note of caution. “We survived, but it’s not to say that something else won’t come along. We do have to watch that we don’t become complacent about biosecurity.”

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TERRY RICHARDS

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ROLLERCOASTER TERRY NEVER WANTS TO RIDE AGAIN For Terry Richards, the Psa-V crisis was a rollercoaster ride and he never wants to experience anything like it again.

“I remember coming home one evening to see my gold orchard block bordered with danger tape – and men in hazard suits. It was my first introduction to Psa. I remember the anguish we all shared when our industry was so seriously threatened,” says Terry.

That was in November 2010, days after the disease was found nearby.

In early 2011 John Burke, General Manager of Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH), approached Terry to assist in negotiating compensation packages for growers asked to cut out their vines in an effort to eliminate the disease. “I didn’t volunteer, but when John asked, I thought I could help. I was never a fulltime member of the team.” Terry worked alongside Ian Greaves and Nathan Flowerday in approaching growers.

What Terry brought to his role was not only nearly 30 years of experience of the kiwifruit industry’s highs and lows, but also that of a number of leadership roles. Twelve months earlier he had stepped down as Seeka's General Manager Business Development and Grower Services; had been active in the Te Puke Fruitgrowers Association; was Chair of the Kiwifruit Industry Supply Group (ISG); President of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI) and Executive Officer for the Kiwifruit to Australia Product Group and an inaugural Director of the Kiwifruit New Zealand Board.

John says Terry was the man for the job. “He has done a hell of a lot for the industry and was the right person to talk to growers who respected him.

He has compassion and is well known, particularly in the Te Puke region.”

One of the hardest tasks John gave Terry was after 29 March, 2011 when KVH pulled the pin on subsidies for vine removal. “We had people in the queue waiting for test results and some missed out including one who really needed that money. Terry had to tell the poor grower the news which wouldn’t have been easy,” says John.

In fact, very little about the role was easy.

“We experienced the full range of emotions.

Some growers accepted reality and wanted to get on with removal. Others tried to grow their way out of the disease. Some people got angry.

Others were quite troubled – even that’s not the right word - they saw their life’s work basically going up in smoke.”

Terry visited some growers five or six times before they agreed to remove their vines. “I understood why they were reluctant to take that step.

Many were hoping for another answer but unfortunately reality and Psa went against them.”

Occasionally Terry assisted growers working on financial packages with banks and from time to time deputised for the KVH General Manager at grower meetings in Te Puke and Katikati, and meetings with groups of bankers, and Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) representatives.

When Terry wasn’t involved in KVH work, he was concentrating on the health of the orchard he and Mary own at Paengaroa. “It was one of the early orchards identified with Psa and was only about two to three kilometres as the crow flies from the initial infection. It was pretty quickly ring fenced with red tape around the Hort16A orchard block which was a no-go zone. It was an awful feeling. You felt guilty about having the disease, even though you shouldn’t because it was spreading elsewhere. Those were tough times.”

Later, Terry grafted to G3 and, when he left KVH, enjoyed being a fulltime orchardist. “Up until about 12 months before Psa our orchard was under contract management, so I never had day-to-day involvement. Psa taught me to be a better orchardist, to be more conscious and observant of what is happening with the vines.”

“Psa is still there but doesn’t tend to be something I think about every day. I have not seen Psa cane dieback for three to four years and think as G3 matures, its resistance has improved.”

Terry is modest about his KVH role. “I was just a bit player. I’m extremely happy at where the industry is now. I guess I was always optimistic. I think seeing scientists like Dave Tanner with such a capable team working so hard, gave me confidence the industry would turn around.”

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Kiwifruit Vine Health 25 Miro Street, Mount Maunganui PO Box 4246, Mount Maunganui, 3149 New Zealand Tel: 0800 665 825 Email: info@kvh.org.nz www.kvh.org.nz

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