Red grapefruit comes later to Australia with heavy demand
The brightly-coloured grapefruit from the Ord are normally harvested during March-April, but for a few reasons, the harvest this year has only just been completed.
Grower Stewart Dobson said a dry and very hot wet season in 2015/16 played havoc with the trees.
"The same weather which resulted in last year's awful mango flowering and season, had a similar impact on the grapefruit," he said.
"Thankfully the fruit kicked on well after the wet season we've just had and when we investigated the market we found citrus was selling well for this time of year.
Mr Dobson said the strong demand for red grapefruit during winter had been a pleasant surprise.
"Normally we'd never be selling grapefruit at this time of the year because we couldn't get a return on our money, but because of a shortage of fruit in the market, we're getting a reasonable price," he said.
"The grapefruit has been excellent, it's as good a quality that we've ever produced.
source: abc.net.au
