Growers in southern Australia are assessing the damage to their cherry crops after 100mm of rain fell over a three-day period, leaving some fruit split.
Damage from the rainfall extended across most of the growing regions in mainland Australia, according to Cherry Growers of Australia (CGA).
"In South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, all regions have had some level of damage," CGA executive officer Trevor Ranford told Fruitnet.
"There's still fruit around, though, and there's some varieties and regions that are not affected or very lightly affected because they're still growing. The damage could be covered by those other regions and varieties."
In the Adelaide Hills, production was expected to be smaller than the previous season even before the rainfall, and now it has been halved again, according to ABC News.
Some regions avoided the rain – growers in the Riverland region finished harvesting last week, before the rainfall began – but some have not been as fortunate.
"We've had a bit of a look around the orchard over the last day or so, after the rain that we've just had, and we're certainly seeing a large amount of splitting and there's some odd damage from rain prior to this last big heap we had," said Glencoe-based grower Matt Haase. "There's definitely a large percentage of split fruit out in the orchard - `we` definitely have to reassess the way we're going to operate, and maybe...tone down our labour."
However Grant Wotton, president of the South Australian Cherry Growers, remained optimistic that volumes would still be sufficient for the holiday season.
"We definitely don't want any more rain," he told ABC Rural. "It would have been handy to wait three or four weeks, but you've got to take what you get."
Cherry splitting is caused by near-ripe fruit absorbing too much water, and complicated the picking process, according to Mr Ranford.
"It makes the whole harvest and packing aspect much more difficult and time consuming," he said.
