New Zealand-grown strawberries may be available in winter soon - if the industry can make it financially viable.
Dr Mike Nichols, a retired vegetable specialist who spent 40 years teaching at Massey University, has been experimenting with winter strawberries.
He has now announced an 18-month experiment of growing and harvesting strawberries year-round has been successful.
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"We've found if we plant at the right time we can get a reasonable crop of strawberries in the middle of the winter and that is quite a desirable characteristic for New Zealand because our imports of strawberries out of season come from Australia and United States of America, California and both of these countries have fruit fly.