Ken Roth, a citrus grower in Gayndah, Australia, observes the losses from a severe hailstorm that hit late last year, leaving thousands of oranges and mandarins on the ground.

"You can't do nothing with them when they're damaged like that," he stated. To manage the situation, Roth and his team are thinning the trees, a routine process to remove blemished fruit. However, his crop yield has dropped by 70% due to the storm's impact. Roth explained, "If you don't get it off the tree you've got to put it through your processing plant, wash it, wax it, and then throw it out."

Fellow grower Matt Benham also suffered losses, estimating a reduction of over half his crop across three farms. "A good year for us is around 14,000 bins [of fruit] … and it'll be looking more like 6,000," Benham remarked. Both growers are prioritizing the removal of severely damaged fruit rather than sorting at the packing shed. Lightly blemished fruit might still reach the wholesale market as a lower-grade product.

Data from Citrus Australia indicates that Southern Queensland, including Gayndah, encompasses 3,500 hectares of citrus trees with an export value exceeding $170 million. Despite the risks, Benham finds hail protection measures like netting costly and impractical for his 70,000 trees, citing increased disease pressure in the humid climate. "You're talking the same value to put the netting up as what the country and the trees are," he explained.

Citrus Australia chief executive Nathan Hancock noted the hail event would have a "marginal effect" on overall supply but acknowledged the profound impact on directly affected growers. "It's really isolating for the growers that it affects because it can literally be across the fence and not be affecting your property," Hancock said. Roth, contemplating drastic measures, decided against bulldozing his 23,000 trees, opting instead to continue his efforts. "I've spent a lifetime putting it here and I just couldn't put myself to putting the dozer through it yet," he reflected.

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com