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A climate change expert says warmer weather in 100 years' time could have serious consequences for the kiwifruit industry and it is important to prepare now.
Dr Gavin Kenny has been employed by Environment Bay of Plenty to work with primary industries and is meeting selected kiwifruit growers this week and next.
"Talking to orchardists, they see water as a big issue with the potential for future drought risk.
"How we manage water for the future is very important," said Dr Kenny.
Dr Bill Snelgar of HortResearch in Te Puke, who has been studying the effects of climate change on the kiwifruit industry over the past 10 years, said if predictions were right, kiwifruit growers would have to implement major changes.
He said such changes included growing new cultivars that are productive at higher temperatures to ensure they can deliver a commercial crop.
Todd Muller, general manager of Zespri grower and corporate services, said the industry was preparing to face climate change as it had the other major challenges in the industry.
But he said making predictions 100 years out was largely a theoretical exercise and unless that prediction changed, the industry was very much focused on "the here and now".
"We're not going to wake up today and it is 3C warmer.
"I appreciate that in terms of climate, 100 years is short but it's still four generations of growers and I have every confidence in the industry to respond."
Climate change experts say by 2080, global warming is expected to have driven the region's average daily temperature up by between 0.3C and 3.8C and more extreme weather is likely.
Dr Snelgar gave the example that Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands was on average only 1.1C warmer than Te Puke and its growers already had to overcome climate challenges in some years when there was insufficient winter chilling, which limits crop production.
He said the aim over the next 100 years would be to develop better techniques or a kiwifruit cultivar that adapted to warmer conditions, to ensure commercial fruit operations could continue.
Stuart Jennings, owner of Sub Tropical Nurseries in Omokoroa, said climate change also had the potential to drastically change which plants could survive outdoors.
He said New Zealand was heading towards conditions like Australia, where the only plants to grow outside were those needing little water, such as succulents.
"Keeping plants alive is a luxury over there. It will change the industry in what we grow. It's going to be quite tough because New Zealand gets good rainfall at the moment ... Old English gardens will be a thing of the past, it'll be too hard to keep them going."
Higher seasonal temperatures in the Bay could also lead to the death of fish species in local lakes.
Fish and Game New Zealand regional manager Steve Smith said a rise in temperature would have "significant" impact on local fisheries and added another risk to the environmental sustainability of the Bay of Plenty's rivers.
"There are two sets of issues facing the waters in our region ... the short-term issue of water quality and now this longer-term issue of climate change, which in the end could have as much, if not more, bearing and further influence water quality issues."
The Ministry of the Environment says longer summers would also mean increased droughts, which would significantly affect agriculture in the Bay.
Derek Spratt, president of Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers, said he wanted to see debate among environmental experts as he'd read conflicting statements in which scientists claimed temperatures were in fact decreasing.
Nick Aleksich, general manager of Mills Reef Winery, said there was potential for grapes to be grown locally, provided the warming weather was dry rather than humid and the right soil types could be found.
The coastal fringes could potentially become ideal for growing grapes in the Bay.
However, he said should the warming weather become tropical it would not bode well for future grape-growing.
- NZPA
