Banking on an avocado bounty

Swapping well-established careers in banking to take up horticulture for the first time might seem daunting, but for Maria and Andrew Watchorn going out on a limb and buying an avocado orchard was the right decision. HELENA O’NEILL talks with Maria about finding independence with avocados.

Maria and Andrew Watchorn at their top-performing avocado orchard in Katikati

Maria and Andrew purchased their first five-hectare avocado orchard at Ōmokoroa, Bay of Plenty, in 2005 after 18 years and 30 years respectively in banking. Although it was predominantly a citrus orchard, there were some avocado trees amongst the citrus and the couple decided to embrace avocados instead.

Eleven years later they bought an additional 10-ha production block. They further expanded in 2021 with another 7ha, and last year relocated to a young 3ha block near Katikati. 

Maria, while she knew nothing about avocados, spent a lot of time in the garden with her father growing up in Whakatane.

 “I come from an Italian family with expansive gardens and spent a lot of time learning – purely from osmosis I’d suggest – about what to do in the garden. Why my father was pruning a fig tree the way he was, and he always made sure all the fruit was accessible. Everything he taught me is basically how we look after avocados.

 “One of the things we say here is that we let science guide us, but we let nature and nurture do the rest. Your orchard tells you what it needs as well.”                                                            

The couple has embraced innovation from the beginning, drilling a bore for water on their first block back in 2006 so they could irrigate with overhead sprinklers. More importantly, this allowed them to frost-protect their trees, which had not been done for avocados. The Watchorns credit their frost system for saving their crops many times. From early on the couple has consistently and regularly pruned trees for light, picking access, spray penetration and growth promotion.

“We’ve always worked incredibly hard to turn an orchard around to what we believe will produce the best crops. Even the newer blocks that we’ve bought have always been decent-sized projects. Some are one-to-two-year projects and some are more than that. We’ve even purchased this time around, a newly-planted block, so that’s going to be interesting for us. Every block that we have ever bought has taken a massive amount of pruning, structural pruning, and a lot of work to get it where we want it to be.

 “We’re suckers for punishment really, we’re supposed to be reducing our workload, not increasing it.”

After 18 years of working with avocados, Maria says the biggest lesson she has learned is to take in as much information as you can before making your own decisions. 

 “To read, to listen, to be very open-minded to any information that you can get. Listen to everyone’s opinions and then use what you believe to be the right thing. I don’t think that anyone is ever wrong, you have to be open-minded and use what works. At the end of the day, the only thing that makes the difference is a practice that has results. Once you’ve found that, it’s hard to go back.”

They must be doing something right, having been named New Zealand’s top avocado grower six years in a row from 2016 to 2021.

In April Maria and Andrew hosted a field day on their orchard as part of the 10^th World Avocado Congress. The Watchorns are no strangers to hosting field days, showing delegates around their second 10-ha orchard at Katikati as part of the 2018 NZ Avocado Conference. Along with other field days, one of the highlights was hosting the then-Governor General Sir Jerry Mateparae on a private tour of their orchard during his visit to showcase Bay of Plenty horticulture.

Hosting a field day as part of the World Avocado Congress was a step up, but Maria is proud of the work they have done on their orchard. She says the whole team worked really hard to present an orchard they were all very proud of.

 “It was a little bit nerve-wracking, but we’ve had nothing but really good, positive feedback. I felt really proud, we all felt really proud. I think we represented New Zealand and what we do really well.”

They also talked about New Zealand native plants, as the Watchorns have put a lot of effort into restoring natives around their property, which is an important part of their sustainability plan.

As for the congress itself, Maria says she came away from the conference feeling encouraged and inspired by those she met and by the information shared there.

“The ability of 33 countries to come together to share research and knowledge at one venue, and to feel like we were all collaborating towards the same thing. As a world group, we’re all aware that one of our main aims has to be building the consumption of avocados.

“It was just incredible, well worth every cent. The people were lovely too. Coming from having a couple of quite downer years for avocados …  there’s work to be done but I think you come away feeling a bit better about it all.”

First published in the May 2023 issue of The Orchardist magazine.