The perfect Christmas tree isn't a pine or a pohutukawa – it's a cherry tree laden with bright red fruit according to David Bateman of Katikati.

'What could be more perfect for Christmas? It's got bright green leaves and bunches of hanging red fruit,” says David who admits to being a little biased – he grows cherries commercially.

David Bateman with his idea of the perfect Christmas tree and his daughters Luci (11) and Katelyn (7) .

He's got a point though. Fruiting cherries do look festive – but not as festive this season as he'd like.

'We had plenty of winter chilling and should have had heaps of fruit but the trees were attacked by the pear slug which I think has affected fruiting.”

Growing cherries in Katikati isn't easy. The Bay of Plenty doesn't have the extreme winter cold of other regions like the Hawkes Bay and South Island and it has too much rain. However, David and Rochelle built shade houses for their 600 trees on the lowest and coldest part of their orchard five years ago and this winter temperatures dropped to as low as -5 and stayed below 0 degrees on several occasions. 'That's more than cold enough for the trees and growing them under cover avoids the risk of fruit splitting after rain.”

The trees are grown in bags and irrigated. 'They are pretty hardy and don't need a lot of attention. I do use fertigation from time to time and generally bugs are not a big problem – except this season.”

However, the trees aren't really paying their way. It's three years since the Batemans had a really good crop. They sell most of the fruit through local farmers' markets where they are eagerly awaited each summer and have no need to export them.

Given the poor returns from cherries it's just as well the couple's other venture is going well. They grow passionfruit for export and local market on the balance of the 9 ha property.

'Growing passionfruit is a bit like the early days of kiwifruit because we not only grow and pick our fruit, we also pack it on site and choose which exporters to send it too, and where it goes on the local market.”

David grew up with kiwifruit on the Te Puna property owned by his parents George and Fay Bateman. 'My after school job early on used to be watering young kiwifruit plants.”
David and Rochelle owned a green kiwifruit orchard north of Katikati where they also grew some passionfruit. Eight years ago they sold it to buy a block of bare land to develop as a passionfruit orchard.

'The block was covered in gorse with a wet, swampy area. We drained, cleared and contoured it and began planting passionfruit.” By leaving the industry the Batemans may have escaped the scourge of the kiwifruit disease Psa-V, but passionfruit has its own nasty disease called blackleg. 'We got it the first year and didn't know what it was.” Controlling the disease, which can kill a vine seemingly overnight, is now a major focus.

Blueberries are also growing on the property and there's room to graze a couple of horses, a few Dorper sheep, a pet calf and a very well fed kunikuni pig, making it the ideal place for daughters Katelyn (7) and Luci (11) to grow up.