Holding up under the sun

These commercial vegetable crops near Outram, on the Taieri Plain, may look parched, but owner Graeme Young says they are doing well, despite the hot dry weather over the past couple of months.

He said the land was not irrigated.

``We just rely on the gods. We can't control it. We just go with the flow.

``They [the vegetables] just seem to keep growing. Quality might not be as good but we still manage to get there.''

The situation is more dire in other parts of New Zealand.

Fruit and vegetable growers in Nelson have reported they are getting close to the point where they will have to start sacrificing certain crops in favour of others, or water everything sparingly and lose fruit in the short term.

Some market gardeners have had to throw away hundreds of thousands of new vegetable plants because they cannot afford the water to plant them.