"We are a few days away," explains Tim Jones from Wandin Valley Farms. "The first cherry picked will be for the domestic market, it will be the Earlise variety. Then we hope to be harvesting the Royal Hazel variety by the end of next week, this will hopefully be for export."
Wandin Valley has orchards in Tasmania as well as in Victoria and Tim expects the season to go on until the end of January.
Alison and Tim Jones
"The fruit set this year is really good, we had a beautiful flowering period and, weather dependent, we expect a good run of quality fruit," said Tim. "This is a nice change from last year when the whole industry suffered from low volumes, this year looks on par with one of our better years."
Martin Sebire, Alison Jones, Tim Jones, Graeme Sebire and Eileen Sebire
Tim’s wife Alison is also heavily involved in the business. She has recently taken on the CEO role and also manages the packing facility. Alison’s father Graeme continues to work pretty much full-time within the business and this seasons cherry harvest will be his 63rd in a row from when he was first involved in the family farm. Graeme always shows a sense of pride knowing that his family has been growing cherries in Victoria since 1893!!
The main export volumes will go to South East Asia and the Middle East and Tim is hoping to get some cherries into the UK and Canada again this year. "We didn't make these markets last year because of the lack of volumes. The big news for our industry this year is that we gained back access into Vietnam. So we will hopefully have a very successful supply program for the whole of the Australian cherry industry. We are really pleased to have that market back after an absence of three years."
For more information:
Tim Jones
Wandin Valley Farm
Tel: +61 3 59 644 669tjones@wandinvalleyfarms.com.au
www.wandinvalleyfarms.com.au