FRUIT FROSTED

Evening Star, Issue 22144, 26 September 1935, Page 10

FRUIT FROSTED

DAMAGE HARD TD ESTIMATE ALEXANDRA APRICOTS SUFFER HEAVILY Unseasonable frosts have taken heavy toll of the apricot crops in the Alexandra district during the past few days,- but it is impossible as yet to estimate the amount of damage that has been caused. It will! be about a week before the full extent of the. trouble can be accurately gauged, though it is reported that only apricots have been harmed. “The weather seems to be out of gear,” Mr Lloyd Williams, orchard instructor at Alexandra, told a ‘ Star ’ reporter to-day. “ The frosts now being regularly experienced are what we should have been getting a month ago, instead of the warm spell, which brought crops away too quickly. Our danger still exists as long as snow lies low on the Old Woman Range, and we caif only hope for warm'winds and rain to melt the snow, which for this time of the year is well down the mountains.”

Furthermore, it was reported that to-day in Alexandra was cloudy, after a windy night, and the rain that was so badly needed was threatening. . No damage to crops has been caused in the Roxburgh district, where the frosts have_ not been nearly so severe as further into Central Otago. Up to the present the weather has been seasonable, and the fruits are progressing normally.