EXPORT OF FRUIT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 720, 20 July 1929, Page 10

EXPORT OF FRUIT

E RESEARCH INVESTIGATION E TESTS IN ENGLAND E(THE SL'N‘S Parliamentary chortcr) i \VELLINGTON, Friday.

Though the New Zealand fruitgrowers refused to make any levy for the purpose of setting up 3. Fruit Research Committee to inquire into the problems of storage and transport of fruit, investigational work in this direction is being pushed ahead. The fruit shipment season just ended is the second during which the Department of Scientific Research, in coordination with the Cambridge Low Temperature Research] Station, in England, has conducted a series of through tests upon fruit shipped away from this country. Under arrangements with the shipping companies, each of 12 vessels which sailed from the Dominion has carried with it cases of fruit. with thermographs placed near them, and valuable information has been obtained. The fruit chosen for the experiments comes from Nelson and Hawke’s Bay, from a certain type of tree and grown in a certain soil. The fruit is selected according to size and is kept at a certain temperature from the time it is packed until it is stowed on board ship, and when it is loaded is placed in specially chosen places. It is known, for instance, that the bottom of the hold is a cooler place than the top. A record is kept of the fruit from the time it leaves the country until it arrives at the Cambridge Low Temperature Research Station, and as soon as investigations are completed at the other end, the data is sent out to New Zealand. At the same time, duplicate cases of fruit are kept in New Zealand under cool store conditions, and these are opened at the time when the cases shipped are due to arrive at Cambridge Station. This “split consignment” system makes it possible to work out useful parallels in the behaviour of fruit. The fruit experimented with includes the six main export; varieties of apples and four varieties of pears. This season marks the end of the preliminary investigations into the question of fruit shipment in refrigerated space. Matters next to be considered are the relative humidity of the holds of steamers, in connection with which hydrographs will have to be installed, the effects of various systems of refrigeration upon the fruit, the behaviour of different sizes of fruit under these various condi—tions and the effect of pre-cooling upon fruit shipped overseas. These problems will receive attention next year. Contemporaneously with this investigation, Cawthron Institute, which is committed to a policy of research into fruit matters, is working on some related problems in land stores, especially insofar as they affect the keeping quality of fruit, and already has managed to improve the keeping qualities of apples from trees which have been systematically fertilised under the advice of the officers of the institute.