Wet spring means low yields for Australian stone fruit
Denise and Paul Kretschmer have been in the stone fruit game in Wirrabara for around twenty years. While not all crops have been affected some of their best sellers have, including apricots, early variety peaches and nectarines.
"We'd usually pick something like 300 to 350 half cases over the block; this season we've picked 50, so it's a seventh of our normal-size crop" Paul said.
Even with the lower yields, the partners remain optimistic about total yields in their orchards.
"I think in the span of a whole year, it will probably work out reasonably close to average but it depends overall on what the later fruit does."
Some of their crops were performing better than expected however. Mr Kretschmer said he was surprised to see the better performing crops in December had been apples and cherries.
"In the past, apples were only a sideline for us, only grown for our own use and the local farmers' markets but this year, the apples have set a colossal crop," he said.
source: abc.net.au
