A Hawke's Bay orchard lost 1500 apple trees to vandals who cut the trees down one night over the weekend, leaving the owner and orchard workers baffled and devastated as to what could have gotten into the minds of the vandals.

Orchard owner Jonty Moffett told Fairfax NZ News his orchard employs between 30 and 90 people, and his family has been growing trees in the area for about 30 years now. He could not explain why vandals would not care about the families relying solely to the apple trees for a living.

Mr Moffett's orchard is at Fernhill, near Hastings. The two-year-old apple trees were 1.8m to 2m tall. Some of the trees had been cut in half, while others had been chopped close to the ground. He estimated it would have taken one person five hours to destroy the crops, which covers an area of about one out of 100 ha of the orchard.

The orchard lost around $100,000, said Mr. Moffett, who added the trees were not insured.

Some orchard crews are now sleeping in paddocks to keep a tighter watch on the remaining trees.

Fairfax reported the trees appeared to have been cut with loppers, and Mr Moffett believed more than one person were involved, as he estimated that it would take one person five hours to cut the trees alone.

"I just can't understand why it's been done, who would have done it ... I'm just at a total loss. But there are that many people out there who want to find out who did it. I'm pretty confident they'll be caught," he told Fairfax.

"I've had guys sleeping the whole night out in the cold because they are worried these guys will come back again," Mr Moffett said.

Fairfax reported a former staff of the orchard was recently jailed for stealing from the company, but Mr Moffett did not believe it was related to the attack to his orchard.

Detective Jeff Foley also told Fairfax he was certain the theft was a separate issue from the orchard attack.