Sometimes it works in your favour, at other times it will completely screw up your plans. One thing you all learned a long time ago, though, is not to rely on the weather.

It is strange therefore that so many in the industry are willing to make such swingeing assumptions on the back of the climate, and John McCliskie’s comments in New Zealand this week (P1) ring very true. The good times are not here.

The world celebrates a balanced European apple market, brought about by weather patterns. But still most individual growers begrudge any responsibility to change their future plans.

There has been a degree of grubbing of Kiwi top-fruit orchards, but the capacity is still there to upset the apple market in a normal year. New Zealand is certainly not alone - most producing nations have refused point blank to reduce capacity, and have in fact increased it, although there has been no signal that a startling rise in consumption is around the corner.

Partly, this is due to continued planting of new trees. Advances in production techniques, machinery and storage and shipping technology undoubtedly play a part.

It all comes back to one thing. When the market is oversupplied, the entire supply chain suffers. Why say this when the market appears to be in better shape? Because surely this is the time to recognise why it is in better shape and resolve to replicate this situation in years to come.