Harvest in New Zealand Shows Promise

Summary

The 2025 olive oil har­vest in New Zealand is show­ing promis­ing results, with some regions fac­ing chal­lenges due to weather con­di­tions, while oth­ers are report­ing higher yields and qual­ity. Despite dif­fi­cul­ties such as fruit rot and poor fruit set, pro­duc­ers are opti­mistic about the sea­son and are imple­ment­ing strate­gies to improve pro­duc­tion in the future. Overall, while some regions expe­ri­enced set­backs, the coun­try as a whole is see­ing an increase in fruit vol­ume, although oil yields have slightly decreased due to addi­tional rain.

The 2025 har­vest is still ongo­ing in New Zealand, and while it is too early to draw a com­plete pic­ture, early signs point to a promis­ing yield for the coun­try.

The most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for olive oil pro­duc­tion have been reported in the north­ern regions of the North Island, where the har­vest began at the end of March.

“They had lighter crops this year, and unfor­tu­nately, many groves were hit with wild winds and heavy rain just as they were about to start their main har­vest, los­ing a lot of fruit,” Emma Grover, the exec­u­tive offi­cer of Olives New Zealand, told Olive Oil Times.

Despite the dif­fi­cul­ties, some pro­duc­ers in the area found rea­sons for opti­mism.

On the pic­turesque Waiheke Island, the long-estab­lished Allpress Olive Groves is report­ing lower yields com­pared to last year.

“Following a large har­vest in 2024 and high rain­fall dur­ing our 2025 sea­son, fruit vol­ume was sig­nif­i­cantly reduced,” said Neil Smith, the groves and grounds oper­a­tions man­ager of the com­pany.

“Fortunately, favor­able sum­mer con­di­tions resulted in high oil yields of nearly 24 per­cent. The qual­ity and fla­vor of the oil pro­duced this sea­son have been great,” he added. ​“Our Koroneiki did par­tic­u­larly well, which we attribute to the heavy regen­er­a­tive prun­ing regime we’ve imple­mented in recent sea­sons.”

The company’s long expe­ri­ence helped it deal with some spe­cific chal­lenges.

“Our main con­straint dur­ing har­vest this sea­son was fruit rot, brought on by unusu­ally heavy rain­fall and a warm mar­itime cli­mate,” Smith said.

“These con­di­tions made cer­tain vari­eties par­tic­u­larly sus­cep­ti­ble, and some of the fruit on lightly cropped trees matured more rapidly, reduc­ing our har­vest win­dow to just eight weeks, down from the usual 12,” he added.

Overall vol­ume was also affected by a poor fruit set, an issue the com­pany is work­ing to improve by address­ing the alter­nate bear­ing pat­tern of the olive tree.

“To ensure more con­sis­tent pro­duc­tion and reduce bien­nial swings, we’re con­tin­u­ing our grove man­age­ment prac­tices, focus­ing on regen­er­a­tive prun­ing, dis­ease con­trol and soil health improve­ments,” Smith explained.

Beyond the north­ern regions, most grow­ers across Aotearoa are opti­mistic.

“The rest of the coun­try has had a much heav­ier crop, extend­ing the har­vest sea­son as they wait for the fruit to ripen,” Grover said.

“The exte­rior of the fruit has col­ored well, but the actual ripen­ing is tak­ing longer than expected, catch­ing a few grow­ers off guard,” she added.

Strong winds were another wide­spread chal­lenge.

“There has been a lot of wind, rain and machin­ery break­downs through­out the coun­try this har­vest, caus­ing delays and frus­tra­tion,” Grover said. ​“On the bright side, there have been no sig­nif­i­cant frosts to dam­age the fruit.”

In the south­ern part of the North Island, Kapiti Olives is enjoy­ing the results of its early har­vest.

“We are in the mid­dle of har­vest­ing. Our Picual came off the trees very well, crop­ping about 22 kilo­grams per tree, though the oil yield was only ten per­cent,” said Diana and Grant Crosse, the own­ers at Kapiti Olives. ​“The olive oil tastes amaz­ing.” 

“We’re attribut­ing the low yield to a very wet autumn, which left the fruit full of water. After one day of shak­ing, the Leccino gave 30 kilo­grams per tree and yielded 12.8 per­cent,” they added.

“Overall, aside from the wet autumn, the grow­ing sea­son has been great. The trees are healthy and full of fruit. We’re hope­ful as we move on to the Frantoio and Koroneiki, which are laden with olives,” the Crosses con­tin­ued.

In the hilly region of Wairarapa, also in the south­ern North Island, Juno Olives is report­ing a strong sea­son.

“Much bet­ter than last year, with higher fruit vol­umes and oil yields. There’s more fla­vor vari­a­tion across our dif­fer­ent cul­ti­vars this year,” said Andrew Liley, owner of the com­pany.

Still, Juno’s groves faced adverse weather. ​“The winds dur­ing flow­er­ing and frosts closer to har­vest were a con­cern. But we were more for­tu­nate than many,” Liley said.

Nearby, the Olivo farm also reported a suc­cess­ful har­vest.

“The 2025 sea­son has been much bet­ter than 2024, both in terms of crop and oil vol­umes,” said Helen Meehan, co-owner of the com­pany.

“Our Tuscan vari­etals gave us ten times more than last year, and our Barnea, some of the old­est com­mer­cial olive trees in New Zealand, pro­duced dou­ble,” she said.

Meehan also noted some dif­fi­cul­ties. ​“Unfortunately, the Frantoio was very sticky on the trees. We could have increased the quan­tity, but even so, we were sat­is­fied. We machine-har­vest most of our 1,200 trees,” she added.

Aquiferra, a pro­ducer in Hawke’s Bay, on the North Island’s east­ern coast, also reported strong results.

“We feel the sea­son has been great. We fin­ished our har­vest about six weeks ago and are pleased with both the qual­ity and the vol­ume of the oil,” said Tim Groves, co-owner of the farm.

“From our two-hectare block, we har­vested ten tons, one of the high­est totals in the past six years,” he added.

Managing time remains a chal­lenge. ​“As this is not our full-time job, fit­ting every­thing around our work sched­ules is a con­stant jug­gling act,” Groves explained. ​“Keeping up with spray­ing and espe­cially prun­ing has been tough.” 

He noted that recent sum­mers brought abun­dant rain­fall, caus­ing rapid tree growth.

“This made the trees very tall very quickly, com­pli­cat­ing spray­ing and mechan­i­cal har­vest­ing,” Groves said.

“Our strat­egy mov­ing for­ward is to prune more aggres­sively than in pre­vi­ous years to man­age tree size, improve spray cov­er­age and make har­vest­ing more effi­cient. It’s been a big year for fire­wood,” he added.

While results from the South Island are still to come, the out­look for the coun­try as a whole appears strong.

“Overall, there is a sig­nif­i­cant increase in fruit vol­ume com­pared to the past two or three years, and many are feel­ing pos­i­tive,” Grover con­firmed. ​“However, due to the addi­tional rain, [oil] yields have dropped a few per­cent­age points across regions and cul­ti­vars.”