Orchardists fighting to protect summer crops from spring frosts are raising the ire of lifestyle block owners.

Some Central Otago orchardists are continuing to get complaints from rural landowners about the noise from their frost fighting wind machines.

3 Kings Cherries managing director Tim Paulin said he estimated the wind machines across the district would only be used about 150 hours each season.

Speaking on behalf of the industry, he said they did get a hard time of it, “but it’s not a huge problem for the amount of good they do,” he said.

Given the history of the area was based around fruit growing, he wanted rural landowners living near wind machines to understand the importance of primary industry to the economy.

“The area needs money put into it to keep it running and we're helping with that.”

Tim and Tisha Paulin of 3 Kings Cherries, north-east of the Clyde dam. PHOTO: THE CENTRAL APP

There were now different models of wind machines on the market that were quieter, but they didn’t always do as good a job at frost fighting, he said.

“We don't have them running for no reason - they are used for the good of the industry.”

A Central Otago Frost Fan Control Group page had been set up on Facebook, with information about how to make an official complaint to council.

It stated that if anyone believed a neighbouring property was breaching the noise limits, they should put it in writing to the Central Otago District Council for monitoring.

The page administrator did not respond to questions from The Central App by the time of publication.

A recent statement on the page said the council had been working with orchards whose fans have not complied with the noise limits.  

“As a result, fan heads have been replaced and other noise mitigation efforts have been made.”

But the council confirmed to The Central App only one official complaint had been made, with one orchard having to replace its frost fans in the past year

The page said last season the council purchased its own monitoring equipment for the purposes of ensuring compliance in not only the District Plan but also the Resource Management Act noise limits.   

Most orchardists spoken to said spring had been mild so far with regard to frost events.

Gourmet Summerfruit manager Matt Tyrrell, who runs a large cherry operation in East Roxburgh, said he would usually average about 14 days of frost fighting a season, but so far had only been out half a dozen times.  

Frosts usually only continued in Central Otago until mid-November but extreme weather events in recent years always had orchardists on guard.