It’s all systems go with the Australian Peach season at full throttle with harvesters all over Australian working through the festive season and new year to deliver us with “Peachy” peaches.
Many stone fruit farms are based in southern NSW and the Herald Sun interviewed orchardist Robyn Clubb about harvesting peaches “ ”Peaches are like dairy cows, they don’t know that it’s the holiday season and they need daily attention,” . She is about one of about 1200 fruit growers that have been working all through the festive season.
Mrs Clubb went on to say that ”A lot of people are amazed at how labour-intensive the process is,” she said. The Herald sun also spoke with Michael Tripodi, the president of the Swan Hill Summer Fruits Development Association who saidL”We can’t use machines to pick because the fruit will damage too easily, ‘people want a pretty piece of fruit – but a tiny scratch which hasn’t broken the skin … doesn’t affect the taste,” he said.
According to the Herald sun Mrs Clubb owns Wisbey’s Orchards near Araluen in southern NSW, she commences working at 6am with her 30 seasonal workers who hand-pick tons of peaches and nectarines. It is estimated by the end of the season, the orchards will have produced about 60,000 trays, equivalent to 450 tonnes, from 19,000 trees. In total, Australian stone-fruit growers will pick 100,000 tonnes of peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots. Now that’s something!
It’s really a fine art come the peak part of any fruit picking season, Orchardist need all their harvest picked in an efficient manner but the consumer still wants pretty unscaved fruit. Fast picking can often lead to damage produced, orchard owners like Mrs Clubb find that “ seconds” fruit can be sold to local visitors while the main harvest is sold to markets in the nearest major city, being Sydney in her case.
Have you picked fruit before or had a fruit picking job? If so how did you find the balance between picking mass quantities while keeping the fruit “ presentable”. We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.
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