The northern territory’s biggest producer of melons has had ‘no real trouble’ supplying the country throughout the winter, and even experienced a period of oversupply, thanks to a 30-40% increase in production. “I wouldn’t say exactly how much we’ve done, as harvest is still winding down for the Northern Territory, but we’ve been sending multiple road trains each day all to supply Sydney, Melbourne and the rest of the country,” says Kane Younghusband, of Roper River Agriculture.
The biggest impact on demand, and prices, has been the colder temperature on the Eastern Sea Board, according to Mr Younghusband. “Prices haven’t been as volatile as they can be during the winter,” he says.“Cool winters impact demand aswell. We’d have expected prices to be higher in the face of the Virus, but we did increase production significantly.” Supply has been split between Roper River and one or two other big producers of melons, and covered the shortfall from crops that had to be destroyed.
Growing conditions in general have also been ‘challenging’ for the Northern Territory, because winter came with unusually cold temperatures. “Cold temperatures and watermelons definitely don’t mix,” says Mr Younghusband. “We had good volume but it certainly wasn’t an easy growing year, dealing with the threat of disease and cold.”
Watermelons are the key crop for Roper River, and the property, about 110km south of Katherine, where all crops had to be destroyed because of the Cucumber Green Mottle Mosaic Virus, remained disease free because of its isolation. “We haven’t allowed any visitors on to the farm either, and followed strict on farm hygiene to protect the crops from CGMMV,” says MR Younghusband. Melons Australia did further testing in the Northern Territory, and returned a false positive after the second round of testing on 30 melon seeds and 30 cucumber seeds.
“One of the major reasons for the issues we’ve had is we haven’t been able to duplicate testing. I believe the latest result was a fake positive. That can happen, it does happen.” Further tests have been carried out, to try and clear more farms for growing melons in 2016, and those results will not be known until December, according to the statement issued by Melons Australia Industry Development Manager Dianne Fullelov.
For more information
Kane Younghusband
Roper River Agriculture
Phone: +618 8975 4232
E-mail: kane@roperriverag.com.au