By Gianina Schwanecke
The Rayner family runs The Gladstone Sunflower Patch as a way to raise money for their sons' hockey team. Photo: Supplied
Dozens of paddocks planted in bright yellow sunflowers have been drawing visitors to farms throughout Aotearoa this summer.
Whether to help supplement farm incomes or for fundraising, sunflower patches have been drawing in large crowds and families in recent weeks.
However, it's been a challenging season for many sunflower growers.
The Rayner family started the Gladstone Sunflower Patch in Wairarapa three years ago to help fundraise for their sons' hockey team - they raised about $12,000 for the team last year.
Mum and grower Lottie Rayner said the patch was a joy to have.
"It gives back in so many ways. Not only does it help our boys be able to focus on hockey during their hockey season ... it's really lovely seeing the public come through. Everyone is just so cheerful."
Though she said they were "well behind" this season, compared to last.
"We've had a lot of trouble with getting our patch started this year," she said. "We're a little bit later than we usually would be."
Gates to the sunflower patch opened last weekend, which was later than the family would have hoped, Rayner said.
"We're just not getting people through the gate, I think because there's so many sunflower patches around."
Unfortunately, the season started with cut worm, a type of moth caterpillar that eats young plants and seedlings, that's most commonly found in maize crops.
This saw the family re-plant just as conditions across Wairarapa became unusually dry for November and December, followed then by non-stop rain.
It was likely to be a short season, only running for another week or two, Lottie Rayner said.
But there won't be any sunflowers going to waste, as they'll be fed to the cattle, the ewes and then be rolled back into the soil.
Organisers have been running the Mangamaire Sunflower Field for four years. Photo: Supplied
It was also an early start this year for the team at the Mangamaire Sunflower Field, near Pahīatua.
Owner Abbe Hoare and her partner Emile de Greeuw started the patch four years ago, as a way to help try to slow traffic on their rural road.
The plan backfired, with more motorists now attracted to the area by the bright colourful flower fields, where they can get photos taken by Hoare, a professional photographer.
The pair are now looking to sell the business on.
Hoare said it had been a mixed season.
"Every season has definitely had its growing challenges," she said. "Even four years in you think we must know it all by now, but unfortunately not."
Though they had got their flowers in the ground early, they too had been impacted by cutworms badly: "something I'd never even heard of before," Hoare said.
But had still been able to open the season early, and were now readying for their final weekend.
It was also the third growing season for Kerry McCorry, of South Eyre Sunflowers, in Canterbury.
The flowers were grown to raise funds for Gumboot Friday and the local community in Oxford, with the seeds donated by the Pure Oil company's Good Oil team, to support the project.
McCorry said they were so far on track to open for Waitangi Weekend, like last year, despite a lack of rain early on and problems with pigeons eating the early seedlings.
"I'm expecting it to be busier than last year, just going from the amount of messages coming through," McCorry said.
"We are hoping for another successful sunflower season, and that the flowers raise some great fundraising for the charities and local initiatives that we support."
