Warm, dry conditions bear fruit as cherries ripen early

THE traditional cherry season has come on early in Tassie’s recent warm, dry conditions, with one orchard predicting it will all be over within three weeks.

EARLY CHERRY PICK

CHERRY growers and holiday-makers love the dry warm conditions, but the juicy fruit has come on so early that for one orchard the season could be all over within three weeks.

Mick Dudgeon, of Stonecrest Cherries near Sorell, has 20 pickers getting ripe cherries off the trees. Today 30 workers started in the packing shed preparing the fruit for markets.

“We normally start picking between Christmas and New Year and run through to mid-January, but this year as it’s been a good season for the crop we could be finished by end of first week of January,” Mr Dudgeon said.

The orchard gets water from the new South-East Irrigation Scheme (stage 3), which was officially opened this week by Minister for Primary Industries and Water Jeremy Rockliff.

“It’s dry and without the scheme’s irrigated water we would have been struggling.”

Stonecrest Cherries, a 7ha orchard, expects to harvest 70 tonnes from the 10 varieties of cherries it grows. They will be sold both domestically and into Asian markets.

“We try hard to get fruit when it’s ripe and full of flavour,” he said.

Pickers 18-year-old Beth Packer and her sister Anna, 16, alongside friend Victoria Okey, 17, all of Hobart, are enjoying their first stint as pickers after finishing school.

“It’s hard work, but fun and a great thing for us to do over the summer holidays,” Beth said.

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