Rain storms, a fall in exports to China and a lack of staff played crucial roles in the challenging cherry harvest in Orange, that has now finished. In contrast, the flood of tourists from Sydney contributed to the pick-your-own season ending earlier than usual. Fiona Hall from BiteRiot said their packing shed, which takes fruit from several orchards in the region, finally wound up its 2020-21 operations last Sunday. She said rain had led to less fruit than usual but the quality was still good this year. Mrs Hall said the inability of overseas backpackers to pick this year's harvest due to COVID-19 restrictions had led to staff shortages. She said they employed university and high school students from Sydney and the region. Mrs Hall said that the government's COVID-relief payments had not helped with the staff shortages, adding that while prices had been good, exports to China had been a challenge due to a lack of flights and politics. "We only did a quarter of what we did [last year]," she said. Thornbrook Orchards' Paula Charnock said their pick your own season finished early as plenty of Sydney tourists made up for the lack of usual international visitors. Mrs Charnock said there was a lack of coach tours due to COVID concerns but plenty of carloads drove up from Sydney. She said they sold pick your own cherries for $7 a kilogram. Source - https://www.freshplaza.com