Kiwifruit growers have shown confidence in the new gold variety by over-subscribing to Zespri's tender process and bidding up to $200,000 a hectare for the right to grow more of the fruit.

Three times as many hectares as on offer were applied for in the closed tender licensing process, the results of which were announced last night.

Zespri Board chairman Peter McBride.

Zespri offered licenses for the equivalent of 400 hectares, but the process attracted bids for 1376 hectares.

At the end of the tender process licenses have been awarded to 266 bidders.

Zespri Board chairman Peter McBride says the level of participation and the high median price of successful bids reflects the strong level of confidence in the gold fruit which is marketed as Zespri SunGold.

The average size of the successful bid is for 1.31 hectares for the restricted tender, open to existing growers of green Hayward fruit and the variety known as G14, and 1.77 hectares for the unrestricted tender.

A further release of 1200 hectares of SunGold licence is planned in three more tranches and subject to further board consideration over the next three years.

The median price (GST inclusive) received for the green restricted tender was $200,000 a hectare and the median unrestricted tender price was $192,500.

The lowest successful bids (GST inclusive) in the restricted category were $166,750 per hectare and the lowest successful bids in the unrestricted category was $163,300.

The tender process will see a total of 200 hectares of existing Hayward green and G14 grafted over to SunGold, so reducing the overall volume of the green crop.

It's likely the majority of those growers who were successful in the unrestricted tender will be developing new orchards blocks on which to plant their licenced fruit.

'One result of the tender process is a good spread of hectares among growers, with 266 successful bids and an average size of bids well under two hectares for each category. We expect that most of the licence allocation will be used for the grafting over of green hectares,” says Peter.

'It's satisfying to see relatively broad participation in the process, although we do recognise that unsuccessful bidders may feel disappointed to have missed out in this licence round. Looking ahead, there will be opportunity to discuss the outcomes of the licence release during the grower roadshows. These take place from July 1 to 8.”

Zespri will provide an update on the performance of Gold3 in the markets later in the season.

It's expected that there will be sufficient information in November 2016 to provide the industry a clear signal regarding the potential release of Gold3 hectares in 2017.

In light of the tender results Zespri has also updated its forecast corporate profit range after tax to $70-$75 million.

This is a significant increase from the forecast range announced by Zespri in April because it now takes into account licence revenue of $50.2 million after tax from the release of 400 hectares of Gold3 licence in 2016.

This revenue will be realised over a number of years. The take-up of deferral terms by a substantial number of bidders means that the licence release will not generate net cashflow to Zespri until the 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21 financial years. At that time the Zespri Board will make decisions regarding use of funds and distribution to shareholders.

A trading halt on Zespri shares remains in force but will be lifted as of 9am on Thursday.