Tough season for state’s Queen Garnets
FOR three seasons in a row, things have become tougher in the country’s biggest Queen Garnet plum orchard.
Warroo Orchard owner Bim Goodrich is thanking his lucky stars he has his eggs in different baskets after another tough plum growing season in Stanthorpe, and he’s not the only one.
While crops in New South Wales growing areas boomed this year, north of the border the picture wasn’t so rosy.
With a warm winter followed up by some crazy hail storms, if it wasn’t one thing ruining the crop for Granite Belt growers, it was another.
Mr Goodrich said the main problem on his farm was a warm winter and a few more hot days in September that shrivelled the buds on the trees.
While he still achieved some fruit, it wasn’t to the yields or quality he was hoping for, particularly on the back of two average seasons.
“They’ve gone well but sometimes because it’s agriculture we don’t do as well as we’d like,” he said.
“We’ve done pretty well overall and it has been a high value product.
“More research has come out (on the plum’s health benefits) so it has been good, but it has been almost a complete failure this year.”
He said what fruit could be salvaged would go to Nutrafruit, the company that developed the revolutionary plum with major health benefits.
It would then be turned into products such as probiotics and plum nectar and the team at Warroo would hold out hope for a better season next year.