21 Mar 2012

Wild weather disrupts harvesting

3:03 pm on 21 March 2012

Stormy weather which brought flooding and power cuts to the northern and central North Island this week has disrupted harvesting of vegetable crops, as well as grapes in the Gisborne region.

Some east coast areas received more than 200 millimetres of rain over two days and there has been surface flooding on the Gisborne flats where a lot of the region's process vegetable crops are grown.

Harvesting of squash, tomatoes and sweet corn has been put on hold until ground conditions dry out, but more rain is forecast later this week.

Murray McPhail, of the contract growing company Leaderbrand, says the wild weather caps off what has been a terrible season for some crops and warns there will be losses.

Gisborne winegrowers president John Clarke says the abrupt halt has come about halfway through the grape harvest.