EARLY season cherry varieties met with some storm damage in the Hilltops region around Young, NSW, but an abundance of fruit in high yields, large size and sweet and juicy will fill cherry lover requirements this Christmas festive season.
That's according to Cherry Growers Australia federal president, Tom Eastlake, Fairfields Orchard, between Wombat and Young.
"Early in the season there was heaps of rain and hail with a number of blocks damaged," Mr Eastlake said.
"But there will be plenty of Christmas cherries for all consumers."
He said it was a great growing season unilaterally across all of Australia.
"Everyone's very happy with only a hiccup with late storms with extreme wind bruising fruit.
"Everything up to flowering was just perfect, but it's the impact of late summer storms that present the challenge for growers."
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He said what will end up in the box would be the best fruit that's even been grown.
"It's amazing, huge size, high sugar, really top quality."
Orange region orchardist, Peter West of Westcastle Partnership between the West family at West Balmoral between Nashdale and Canobolas, said the season was looking OK at the moment although some of the crop was slightly down in numbers due to the drought.
"But the fruit is larger and better quality for sure," he said.
Picking started in the last week of November and will most likely run through to the first week of January.
Mr West said there were generally 12 to 15 different varieties grown which spreads ripening and picking times through the season.
As far as pickers go, Mr West said he felt orchardists would scrape through the season with locals being the main core this year.
"We even have school students coming out to earn some dollars for Christmas holidays," he said.
There has been a really good start in the Hilltops region with a different mix of pickers than other years, according to Mr Eastlake.
"Many of our core pickers have and are returning this year while backpacker numbers are certainly down, no doubt due to the result of coronavirus restrictions," he said.
There had been an influx of pickers early in the season with Mr Eastlake saying some had to be turned away.
However, there are now some shortages, especially in permanent staff, and orchardists would like to see more workers come to the district.
"The downside for growers is they are doing many extra hours work to fill in the vacancies and I'm currently on the job up to 18 hours a day," he said.
Mr Eastlake said exports would continue to Asian clients with the assistance of the federal government's initiative of the International Freight Assistance Mechanism (IFAM).
"This helps us support our air freight and while I'd like to see more flights than they're offering, we are certainly thankful for the scheme," he said.
"It's very good to have this initiative underpinning our export at this time."
Mr Eastlake said there had been a strong start to exports, "but we will have to work very hard because air freight presents some challenges and we do need to make sure we are getting fruit out of the country".
He said exports were continuing to China.
"It's more challenging because of air freight availability, however we really have a good relationship with the people in China which includes our importers and the industry itself.
""It's a relationship which has been built over many years and in the past 10 years in particular.
"So, we are very confident about fruit quality and meeting protocol requirements.
"China is one of our important markets and if protocol conditions alter, we would continue to work closely as we have such a good relationship with them."
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