A Western Bay of Plenty kiwifruit grower is not giving up on growing a green variety of the fruit – especially after posting an orchard gate return of $90,000 per hectare last season.

Owen St George, who owns an orchard in Te Puna, holds a licence for one more hectare of Gold 3, but for now has decided not to cut out and graft his productive green vines to gold.

Te Puna orchard owner Owen St George, DMS orchard manager Matt Greenbank and Owen's wife Jackie, with the green kiwifruit that produced a record return last season.

'The returns on green are still an exciting prospect; growers are still making profit,” says Owen.

The move flies in the face of many Bay orchardists, who are cutting out green Hayward vines and grafting new gold varieties to curb vine disease Psa-V's impacts on plant health.

Despite Psa, last season the St George orchard produced an average of 15,109 trays per hectare with size 33 fruit, making an orchard gate return in excess of $90,000 – compared to the industry average of $43,000.

The return is the highest OGR recorded for 2013 by the orchard's management company, Direct Management Services.

The orchard is owned by the Owen St George Family Trust and managed by Matt Greenbank of DMS. Owen's daughter, Jackie, also works on the orchard.

Owen says last season was a case of 'everything lining up perfectly” to have a great crop.

'Everything has to line-up for that one-in-a-million crop – last year everything really fell into place, despite the drought,” say Owen.

'It's a fantastic result for green, almost unheard of. To get more than 15,000 trays was a real thrill.”

But Owen says it wasn't easy. 'It was emotionally draining last season, dealing with the dry weather and Psa; you never knew how much worse it was going to get. So to come out with a record crop was a real buzz. It's proven to be a great orchard, even in the dry.”

Owen believes gaining a result like last season comes down to teamwork and trust, made even more important by the fact he lives out of town, in Ohope.

'Working with a great team and having good relationships with them is important. You've got to trust your manager and your labour contractor and I'm fortunate to have great relationships with both.”

Owen purchased the orchard about 10 years ago, following 34 years' farming in the King Country, Bay of Plenty and Hawke's Bay.

Before last season's bumper crop, the orchard consistently produced about 11,000 to 12,000 trays per hectare.

'It's been a reasonably good orchard the past few years, but we felt we could still be doing things better.

'The biggest change was grafting new chieftain males about five or six years ago, which are now at full production and have really made an impact. We have more males than a conventional orchard, with every second row being male.”

DMS' Matt Greenbank, who began managing the orchard about four years ago and has been part of the rebuild phase, says laying down good foundations is critical to a good crop.

'You need to get the basics right. If you do the two biggest things well – your winter pruning and spring pollination – that sets up the basis for a good crop and you can work on the rest from there. Timing and quality control are crucial.”

Matt says the solid relationship between the St Georges himself is a huge advantage when managing the orchard and contributes to its overall success.

'It's great to have a grower that trusts you and what you do.”

The St George orchard consists of 2.7ha green kiwifruit and 1.3ha newly-converted Gold 3. Last year Owen and Jackie removed all 16A gold variety, due to Psa, and burned it.

The whole process has been a learning experience, with Owen and Jackie taking on the conversion workload.

'It's been a huge undertaking and we've made a few little mistakes, but we've learned from them. The whole industry's still learning about G3,” says Owen.