Albert Town based horticulture company Hortinvest has expanded its horizons to include a new partnership in the Ardgour Valley, Tarras, investing in fruit growing with the potential for new employment opportunities.

Joining forces with Ardgour Station, the two have formed Ardgour Valley Orchards (AVO) and have already planted about 9,000 apricot trees and 1,200 cherry trees during the winter this year, with a further 6,000 apricot trees and 7,000 cherry trees scheduled for 2021 and 2022.

Spread across 33 hectares of the station, two thirds of the new orchard has been set aside to produce new commercial apricot varieties bred by Plant and Food Research at its Clyde site in Central Otago. One of the new apricots is an early season variety ready for picking early to mid December.

White-fleshed and red-fleshed cherry varieties will complement the stonefruit line-up.

White-fleshed cherries will be a point of difference for the new orchard.

Hortinvest's Ross and Sharon Kirk said Ardgour Station, located in the fertile Ardgour Valley with plentiful irrigation, provided ideal growing conditions for the cherries and apricots. 

Bruce Jolly, whose family has bred merino sheep and cattle at Ardgour Station since 1955, said he became interested in diversifying the station's land use into horticulture after a study in 2000 found much of the property was climatically suited to stonefruit production.

The site chosen has the best attributes including the nature of its contours, drainage ability and it is frost-free, he said.

Ross and Sharon Kirk

Bruce said horticulture was one of the few sectors where the producer could maintain control of the product from orchard to consumer and he was looking forward to being part of New Zealand's horticulture success story.

While first harvests aren’t expected until 2023, Hortinvest will manage AVO's orchard and harvest and export operations, including the recruitment and management of staff. 

Sharon said they’re hoping to attract staff who come to Central Otago and want to stay in the region longer than just a couple of weeks as the orchard could provide work for several weeks from December through to harvests in early March.

AVO won’t be providing on site staff accommodation in the early stages, she said, but Hortinvest is already working with the backpackers and the camping grounds on securing workers’ accommodation.

“We are also looking at some purpose built accommodation in the future which likely will not be on site,” Sharon said..

AVO is the latest orchard development undertaken by Hortinvest in Central Otago. 

Its other developments include Tarras Cherry Corp which will harvest its first commercial cherries this summer and Deep Creek Fruits NZ LP - a significant enterprise which is developing cherry orchards at Lindis Peaks and Mt Pisa.

PHOTOS: Supplied