Heavy flooding in Western Australia’s Gascoyne River catchment area has interrupted the harvesting of table grapes there and potentially caused millions of dollars in damage to the horticultural industry.
Table Grapes WA secretary Allan Price told fruitnet.com table grape growers in the area were still assessing the damage but at this stage most estimates were that around a quarter of the crop had been lost after the area received its annual rainfall in just 22 hours.
The flooding occurred during harvesting, he said, and some early varieties had already been sent to markets, where they were receiving good prices.
“Most of the seedless varieties have probably been damaged as they were close to harvest,” he said.“There’s some hope that some of the red globe might still be picked, but there may be splitting around the top of the fruit.”
He added that there was concerns fruit held in coolstores might have been damaged after flooding caused power cuts in the area.
“The biggest loss is probably going to be through the loss of subsoil and damage to the infrastructure,” he added. “The loss through erosion has been bad.”
Vegetables WA executive officer Jim Turley said in the West Australian that melons, capsicum, cucumber, tomatoes and chilies were also damaged.
He said, however, bananas and mangoes, which are also grown in the area, were not badly affected.
“For the industry as a whole it’s going to cost growers millions and millions of dollars to recover,” he told the newspaper. “It’s very, very devastating.”
