The extensive flooding across south east Australia from heavy rains over the past week has caused concern for the horticulture industry, but seems to have avoided causing significant damage to crops so far.
Southern New South Wales and northern Victoria have been dealing with the worst of the flooding over the past few days. Citrus growers in Griffith in New South Wales have orchards underwater today, and are hoping to move water away from trees before a further wave of flooding coming down from the north hits the town.
“It’s just a big shock to our systems – we never expected anything like this,” Vito Mancini of Griffith-based blood orange grower Redbelly Citrus told Produce Plus. “They’re talking about it being a one in 150 year flood.
“We’re not sure what the impact is going to be so far `on the next season`. The trees are looking healthy - if we can get rid of the water as quick as possible, we shouldn’t have any dramas, but we’ve got three pumps working on it and they’re not keeping up.”
Local reports say the flooding has caused some problems for the tail end of the stonefruit harvest as well.
Table grape production in the Mildura-Robinvale area has so far avoided any flooding, although heavy rains over the last week have caused some disruption to picking, growers tell Produce Plus.
“Most of the rain went around us. We had 85-100mm of rain, but last year we had 250mm of rain and it flooded everything, so it’s not as bad as last year,” said John Argiro of major Mildura grower Palms Vineyards.
Wine grape producers have not been so lucky, with several large production areas hit by flooding with the latter part of the crop still on the vines.
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