Early last Thursday morning Tasmania’s cherry orchards were looking down the barrel of a frost, raising bad memories of an industry-crippling rime in the state two years ago.
The shivers running down the spine of growers was, luckily, all most of the state’s cherry producing regions saw of the cold snap, thanks in part to lessons the industry learned in the last bad frost.
“The industry has been preparing growers for a bad frost like the one we had two years ago,” Lucy Gregg of Fruit Growers Tasmania told Fruitnet.
“Whether that preparation was having a trigger and calling in the helicopters, or frost machines, or overhead irrigation, we’ve been very proactive, and some of the worst-hit areas managed to avoid any significant damage.”
Ms Gregg says some lower-lying blocks may have taken damage, but in the larger orchards she estimates impact at only 5 per cent.
“The information from growers is that there’s been a bit of damage, but it’s not significant. Growers are still assessing some blocks, though.”
“With this degree of frost you don’t see physical damage straight off; that’ll become more apparent in the next week or two,” she said, adding growers were optimistic about the low level of damage.
Ms Gregg said Tasmanian cherries undergo a normal shedding period, which hadn’t happened yet, and that the frost would likely only act as a natural thinning agent.
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