Fruit Industry And Wartime Conditions

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 5, 6 January 1940, Page 6

Fruit Industry And Wartime Conditions

SOLVING NEW PROBLEMS Per Press Association. NELSON, Jan. S. lion. D. G. Sullivan, in au interview to-day, aaid the Government’s decision to purchase the coming apple aud pear crop and attend to its marketing locally and overseas gave added importance to tho experiments being carried out by the Department of Scientific aud Industrial Research on various aspects of storage and utilisation of fruit. Uncertainty with regard to the available export space for fruit made it most probable that there would be a consider* able increase in the amount of fruit available for local consumption. Tho question of the storage of this fruit under the best possible conditions was, therefore, one of very considerable importance. In Britain refrigerated gas storage of fruit was already being successfully applied on a considerable scale and had done much towards solving local marketing problems by enabling fruit to be held over loDger periods in better condition than under ordinary cold storage. Experiments on the application of gas storage to New Zealand apples were commenced by the department two years ago and produced * results indicative of the potential value of this process in New Zealand. Referring to apple juice, the Minister said: 44 The production of unfermented apple juice offers a very promising outlet for the utilisation of part of the surplus fruit that it is anticipated will be available. The department has beeu actively helping to foster this industry by collaborating in commercial scale experiments on the production of apple juice from various varieties of New Zealand apples. The results have demonstrated that New Zealand apples can be successfully used for this purpose and it now remains to increase the local demand in the first instance by suitable publicity, drawing attention not only to the desirable characteristics of apple juice as a beverage but also to its dietetic qualities. 44 Arrangements have beeu made lor a special display of New Zealand-manu-factured apple juice at the Centennial Exhibition.” The increased demand for New* Zealand tobacco arising from the war conditions brought with it the necessity for increasing the acreage of tobacco planted, said the Minister. The tobacco research station at Riwaka, which has now established itself in full working order, has been able to give advice to growers on problems relating to the bringing of new land under cultivation, for the tobacco department was co-oper-ating in the manufacture of nieptine on a eemi-commercial scale from waste tobacco leaf and leaf grown at the tobacco research station from varieties containing a high percentage of nicotine. Good progress had been made with these experiments and it was expected that a satisfactory process would bo evolved.