Storm wipes out cherries

Millthorpe Cherry Exports orchard manager for the past nine years, Rodney Oxley, said the hail in sizes between five-cent and 10-cent coins ripped through the orchard’s 10,000 trees of 13 varieties, just one month before picking.

The storm also wreaked terrible damage to cereal and pulse crops in a line through Gilgandra, Dubbo and Millthorpe.

“Speaking with orchardists in the Orange growing area, the storm completely missed them and came through here in a very short width from the south west,” Mr Oxley said.

While he is counting the damage, Mr Oxley believes not much of the crop would be salvaged.

“I’m looking at 50 per cent of the fruit stripped off and laying on the ground with a further 20 to 30 per cent damage on the trees,” he said.

Mr Oxley manages the orchard for Sydney businessman, Steve Tesoriero, a director of Vegie World, agents operating at Sydney’s Flemington Produce Markets.

Mr Oxley said the orchard produced 100 tonne of cherries last year, many of which were exported to Asia.

“We’ve had such a good season that I was estimating a picking of up to 140 tonnes this season,” he said.

He has now moved into salvage mode and will spray his trees for Brown Rot, which he said would spread from damaged fruit to good harvestable fruit within days.

“We just can’t lock the gate and try again next year,” he said.

“Orchards are a year-round management thing from spraying, pruning and keeping moisture up to the trees.”

The devastated crop will also dent the local economy and employment.

“I’ve had to put off two casual workers and we would normally employ more than 120 pickers plus contract out our grading and packing.”

Mr Tesoriero said he couldn’t insure the crop for such damage so it’s one season completely lost.

At Armatree, Chris Roach, who farms Reedsdale with wife Sara, estimated a loss of 60pc of his pulse crops from the storm.

“I wouldn’t be the worst hit though,” he said. “Where we lost the crops, we got hit pretty hard. The hail was about an inch across.”

Mr Roach said he was lucky to be insured for the damage, but said it was still a huge blow.

“You don’t grow crops to lose them. You grow crops to see how good you are at it.”

A total of 1300 hectares of pulses, including lupins and chickpeas, were within a “whisper” of being harvested.

“The lupins were just ripe. We will try to salvage something but the pods are splitting open now,” he said.

“When you stand in the paddock you can hear the snap, crackle, pop of them splitting.”

Mr Roach said the hail damage and warm weather and wind following the storm was splitting the pods.

“Before this, we’d had a good season. The crop would have been above average,” he said.

“It’s part of the game. It’s not common for us to get hail but we do get it.”