Adelaide Hills cherry harvest ripens late, pushing Christmas prices up.

By Nicola Gage

South Australia’s cherry season is running about three weeks late, pushing prices up by $5 a kilo ahead of Christmas.

The Adelaide Hills harvest is also predicted to be about half the size of last year’s bumper crop.

Cherry grower Grant Wotton said bad weather was to blame for the late season.

“It was a cold, wet winter. We’ve had more rain this year than we’ve ever had,” he said.

“The bees didn’t fly and they didn’t pollinate a lot, so that’s why we’re down, and we’re also late.”

Mr Wotton said despite the smaller yields, quality was high.

“We’ve had a dream run since flowering. There’s been no bad weather since flowering; we had a bit of a hail storm, but it didn’t seem to impact on a lot of people,” he said.

“And the cherries … there’s not as many on the trees so they’re big.”

The late season means some growers may be harvesting well into January.

According to the Cherry Growers Association of South Australia, the state grows about 590 hectares of cherries and usually produces between 2,000 and 4,000 tonnes, while larger producing states of Victoria and New South Wales each have 800ha under crop.

However, cherry crops along the eastern seaboard have also been hit hard by unseasonable cold weather, with the annual harvest tipped to be just 40 per cent of the previous year’s crop.

‘Cherry mad’ visitors turned away

For Adelaide Hills cherry grower Lochie Pollett, business is starting to ramp up for the Christmas period.

The farmer had to turn away visitors eager to pick their own fruit at the weekend because there were not enough ripe cherries.

“We had 1,200 people before three o’clock [on Saturday], I think, and they were cherry mad,” Mr Pollett said.

Mr Pollett’s crop is about three weeks late.

“We’ve probably got half of what we had last year, but last year was a good year,” he said.

It is a similar situation across the nation, after widespread rain wiped out a huge chunk of the country’s harvest.

Mr Pollett said other growers had not been as lucky as he had been.

“Some poor growers have got nothing. They’ve got two days worth of picking and they’re done,” he said.

Mr Wotton said he expected prices to stay high while cherries were in short supply.

He said he would have a better idea of yield size within the next fortnight.

“It’s going to be really hard to judge on what the volumes are going to be, and after Christmas, hopefully, people will keep buying cherries and we should be right,” he said.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.