AU: Marginal melon season for Queensland growers

A southern Queensland watermelon grower says significantly lower fruit quality and a very low price has combined to make a disastrous season. Ian and Sharon Beard grow 11 hectares of seedless melons near Chinchilla and this year they'll probably have to throw out 70 per cent of their crop because of quality defects. Ian Beard says despite growing the fruit the same way they have for years they've had serious melon imperfections. "I think the combination of the cold and we had a bit of heat in November, lack of pollination has really given us problems with our fruit internally.
"Inside the fruit it either had a crack or it has a star, one being pollination and the other being nutrition."

Mr Beard says an oversupply in the market means extremely low prices of around 40 cents per kilogram, he says that's much lower than the usual price range of between 70 cents and a dollar per kilo. The pollination issue experienced by Ian Beard at his melon business is a nasty trick of the season according to a leading beekeeper.
President of the Queensland Beekeepers Association Trevor Weatherhead says it's possible that better blooms on other trees lead bees away from the Chinchilla melon crops. He says 2011 was an average season for honey production and the competition between crops and trees is quite common. "Melons aren't very attractive to bees so if there was something flowering around there that was more attractive the bees would probably go that way. "I think it's just seasonal, this year in certain areas there has been some good flowering of trees."

Source: abc.net.au