About 50 per cent of the Goulburn Valley stone fruit crop in north-east Victoria, Australia, is thought to have been destroyed by freezing temperatures overnight.
ABC News Online reports local growers association Fruit Growers Victoria saying that temperatures fell to -5°C in some parts of the Valley.
FGV deputy chairman Ian Bolitho told ABC apricots, plums, peaches and nectarines have been frozen by the frost.
He added there will no apricots harvested in the Goulburn Valley this year and estimated damage at about A$60 million.
"We know we grow around about 250,000 tonnes of fruit and I would say, at this stage, there would be certainly 50 per cent of that would be gone. Even at this early stage, if you put a value on that at say $500 a tonne [that's] around the $60 to $65m [mark]," he is quoted as saying.
No comments yet