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AVOCADOS
A confident start to the 2025 avocado season As we move into the start of the 2025-2026 avocado season, there’s a quiet buzz among growers – a sense of cautious optimism grounded in the realities of the past few years.
After navigating challenging seasons marked by cyclones and prolonged wet weather, there’s a renewed focus across orchards on setting up for success early.
Season preparation
June marks the start of harvest in early maturing orchards. While much of the work to grow this season’s crop is already done, vigilance in crop compliance comes to the forefront. Pest and disease control remains essential. For export growers, now is the time to ensure all market access requirements are met around chemical choices, rates, and timing. It’s worth remembering that the decisions made now will influence outcomes months down the track.
Export markets
This season, Darling Group will maintain a presence in the Australian market, while also progressing our partnerships in Asia, with our early season harvest, with China, H Hong ffocus on Chi Kong, and Korea.
USA will join Canada in our North American expansion. Despite stepping away from avocados in Australia as a key focus, our relationships remain strong. JH Leavy & Co., our Australian fresh produce business, continues to supply a range of other fresh produce categories into retail, meaning our association is steady, our risk is low and our ability to act decisively is high. To support our growth in Asia, we’re excited to welcome Ben Ying as our newly appointed market manager based in Shanghai. Ben brings deep experience in the perishable goods trade, having worked in international seafood markets. He will operate from the Primary Collaboration New Zealand office, which houses several leading New Zealand primary sector exporters – placing us at the heart of regional trade and opportunity. The USA will play an important role in our market expansion, though the political landscape and impending election season bring uncertainty. At this stage, we are not expecting direct disruption to avocado trade, but we are watching closely. Global avocado supply chains are tightly linked. It’s important to note that our involvement in global trade isn’t seasonal – we are active across Asia, Australia, and North America every day. That daily d l participation gives us unparalleled
insight into shifting market dynamics and new opportunities and reinforces our leadership in export strategy and Asia market development.
Maximising value
Beyond market expansion, we’re also focused on extracting full value across the crop. Last season, we marketed the majority of New Zealand’s export Class 2, 3, and process-grade fruit. This supports a more sustainable supply chain and helps ensure that more growers can achieve commercial returns across a broader fruit profile.
Just Avocados
Operationally, we have significant developments underway. This season, we are completing our site roading
AVOJECT® SYRINGE
improvements, expanding covered bin storage, and adding a new coolstore. With increased packing volume confirmed, an exciting update is that Just Avocados will be running near to capacity and working our machine at the pace it was made for. We will operate two shifts and leverage our technology to drive this high output efficiently. The outlook for the 2025 season is shaping up with a blend of promise and pragmatism. There’s no denying the past few years have tested our resilience – but there’s a lot to be optimistic about. With steady orchard management, clear planning, and strong collaboration, this season offers a real chance to reset and grow.
The proven low pressure method for effective phytophthora control in avocado trees. The Avoject® are high quality syringes with a small tip to minimise tree damage. E: info@avoject.co.nz | W: avoject.co.nz
Harvest in early maturing avocado orchards is underway for the 2025-26 season.
• Aerial Survey • Aerial Lifting • Agricultural Seeding • Agricultural Spraying • Agricultural Topdressing • Charters and Sightseeing • Fire Fighting • Frost Control
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