Australia Weather News

It is a Christmas table staple, but less than two weeks from the big day, cherry supplies have been severely impacted following damage to crops in New South Wales and Victoria. 

The two states are Australia's biggest suppliers of cherries, and have been hit by storms and heavy rainfall of more than 150 millimetres in recent weeks.

Local growers said it had slashed their fruit by at least a third.

New South Wales and Victoria produce about 4,500 tonnes of cherries each year, and the lower supply could lead to higher prices.

Cherry grower Fiona Hall, from Orange in NSW, estimated she had lost around $700,000 after the heavy rain caused her fruit to "explode", forcing her to abandon half the crop.

"When the trees are constantly wet, the water hangs on the bottom of the cherry and splits the bottom," she said.

"As the cherry develops and gets its sugars, they're exploding."

Ms Hall also runs one of the largest cherry packing sheds in the state.

She said while it was normal to get storms at this time of year, the high humidity and prolonged wet weather prevented growers from mitigating its impacts.

"That humidity also really makes it a challenge to keep the rot and the fungal out," she said.

Ms Hall packs cherries for most of the Orange district, and will usually process about 1,200t of fruit through her shed in a season.

This season, Ms Hall said her packing operation was throwing out 50 per cent of the cherries due to damage.

She said the shed would be lucky to produce 600t of the fruit, which she estimated would lead to almost $8 million in losses for her growers.

Impact on consumers

Ms Hall said due to the drop in supply, consumers should expect to pay more for cherries.

"The supply's not going to be there unfortunately, so that does lift the cost up," she said.

Further south, orchardist Samantha Flanery from Young said the storms had left her with a significant amount of soft and split fruit.

"The [early-variety] cherries that we picked were stunning, of high quality, [with] few defects," she said.

Then her property received 150mm of rain in five days.

"We probably left at least 30 per cent of our production on the trees this year," Ms Flanery said. 

"The most significant cost is picking and packing … so we did the numbers and it didn't pay us to pick those varieties that were so affected."

Counting the cost

NSW Cherry Growers Association president Greg Perry said the recent storms at his property on Mt Canobolas, near Orange, were unlike anything he had experienced.

"It's been the worst I've seen in such a short space of time, [and] what made it more severe was the high humidity, and high temperatures," he said.

Mr Perry said NSW has lost up to 35 per cent of its crop thanks to the recent storms.

"There will be a shortage, from what we've seen in other years, but they will still be on the supermarket shelves," he said.

"The price of the cherries, they will be comparable to your berries such as strawberries, and blueberries and raspberries."

But he said the industry had made big strides in protecting itself from these late seasonal storms by planting different varieties that need to be picked at different times.

"You might lose an entire variety, but the one next to it might be alright because it might be a week later, or a few days later [that it gets harvested]."

Cherries for Christmas

Victorian grower and Cherry Growers Australia president Alison Jones said her state had also lost about a third of its cherries due to the summer storms.

But she said it was too early to determine what the loss had been for other producing stateslike Tasmania and South Australia.

Despite fewer cherries expected to go to market this year, she said she was confident it would not result in "significant" price increases at the supermarket.

"It's going to come down to the next few weeks to see how things pan out," she said.

"There will be cherries still around, [but] there might not be quite the quantity that was anticipated."