What will become of up to 15 per cent of Australia's mango orchards is a question few in the country can answer at the moment.
Timbercorp, the recently-failed Australian timber and horticultural investment firm, owns four major mango orchards in Queensland and the Northern Territory, but has not paid the company responsible for running them since March.
That company, OneHarvest, is now owed A$2m by the investment firm, and has had to hand over management of one plantation near Bundaberg, reported the ABC.
"The Bundaberg farm was our largest cost, we're not being paid to manage the crops at all," said the company's Robin Poynton.
"The Bundaberg farm employed the largest number of people and it was just something we could no longer afford to do.
"We haven't be paid for anything since March."
Speaking to Fruitnet late last month, OneHarvest said it was hoping for a resolution similar to that which Timbercorp's financial administrators reached with the managers of its olive orchards, facilitating funding for the harvest to go ahead in the weeks following Timbercorp's collapse.
It's some months yet to the mango season, however, which means OneHarvest and the mango orchards are on the bottom of the administrators' list of concerns.
OneHarvest has not ruled out buying the operations outright. The company also holds the rights to the Calypso (B74) mango variety grown in the orchards.
