The Australian citrus harvest has been underway for a few weeks now but rain in the Riverland region is hampering picking.

“It is slow going at the moment,” said Sam Vasala from Sai World. “We can’t get enough fruit into the packhouse due to the rain which is slowing us down. At the moment it is not affecting the quality of the fruit and we are expecting better weather soon. We have seen a bit of albedo creeping in, but not as bad as last year so we are doing our best to take out the affected fruit.”

As predicted the fruit sizes on the Washington Navels are smaller this year at 88s and 113s. The demand is there for these sizes in the retail driven markets but the wholesale markets are still looking for the bigger sizes. “The bigger growers are managing to provide these as they have more volumes, but small and medium size growers don’t have enough large fruit. This year it seems only lemons are big and no one wants big lemons!”

Sam said that although the season is challenging there is good demand, he expects things to get easier as the season progresses.

“The flavour of the fruit is good, but could be better. Australia is known for high quality, great tasting fruit, we are not at the peak yet for flavour due to the weather, but it will get better as the weather improves. A good dry year will take us back to normal.

“Despite the challenges all the markets are performing well and demand is good. We are also promoting the easy peel Navel which is doing very well in Thailand and Korea, we are just starting the export into Japan and Taiwan.”

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com