DFA chair, CEO & industry development updates

Welcome to a new year

A note from our chair

2022 is here and, at the time of writing this, some have been fortunate to have missed all the rain we’ve had through January.

Many times it looked like we were in for some heavy falls and on Australia Day many received a very large rain event. I hope any damage has been minimal for our growers. Harvest should now be well underway, and if not spraying drying mixture and cutting canes it will be happening shortly on most varieties. It’s been a promising season so far, with crops looking good to date and prices strong. In November, the Fair Work Commission handed down its ruling that farm workers were entitled to take home a minimum casual rate of pay – currently $25.41 an hour. This change to the Horticulture Award will come into effect on 28 April. (Read more about the change to the Horticulture Award on page 7). Labour will be short again, so it’s a good idea for growers to have a backup plan. It may be better to start a bit earlier than wait until everyone is looking for workers at the same time. Potash and drying oil are also in short supply, so it’s important to check availability with suppliers. DFA has recently released its updated copies of our Best Practice Guide. I encourage everyone to have a look. It gives a great guide on season timelines and how your harvest should roll out. Remember, when we get into late March and April, the drying time is extended and dehydration costs often eat the dollars we gained in weight.

News from our CEO

Welcome to a new year – one which we all hope will have great opportunities for the dried grape industry and where the issues we’ve all experienced over the past two years with Covid-19 will start to dissipate.

The year ahead will – in late March – see the finalisation of the Australian Government-funded 10 Tonne Project. Data from the four sites involved in this project has shown how considerable improvements can be made to productivity through the use of agritechnology guiding vine requirements for fertiliser and irrigation inputs. Further information derived from this project will be discussed at the postponed Annual Grower Forum, which will be held on 28 April at Willow and Ivie.

I encourage all members, growers and stakeholders to attend the forum, which will be sponsored by Hort Innovation featuring guest speakers focussed on the ever-changing requirements for horticulture, including: - Hort Innovation, talking on the recently-released Sustainability

Framework and benefits for dried grape production systems - Kevin Bodnaruk, an expert on maximum residue limits (MRLs), discussing impacts for spray programs in markets, particularly the EU

- Ferdie Botha, CEO Raisins South

Africa, focussing on the industry in

South Africa

- Processors APDF and Sunbeam

Foods, providing updates on the industry and markets DFA will provide nibbles and drinks at the end of the forum, when there will be a chance to talk with the guest speakers. We look forward to seeing you there. Other learning opportunities in the first half of this year include the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre AgTech Summit, which will be held at the SuniTAFE Farm on Thursday and Friday 5 and 6 May, and Mildura Field Days on 20 and 21 May at the Mildura Racecourse.

With harvest upon us, we trust that the weather will hold and that this year will deliver good yields for all. v

Mark King | Chair Anne Mansell | CEO

Progress on projects

DRIED GRAPE PRODUCTION INNOVATION AND ADOPTION PROGRAM 2021-26

As we move through harvest 2022. It has been a busy few months for the Dried Fruits Australia extension and development programs. Mechanised pruning

We have continued to work on the mechanised pruning system with our partners at La Trobe University and Mallee Regional Innovation Centre.

Now that the cutting system is largely completed, the focus has been on establishing a reliable image system that can be used to drive the cutting head location.

The latest tests have involved both normal video and LiDAR (light detection and ranging) imaging.

Hopefully this will give us enough information for the engineers at La Trobe University to control the cutting head with enough sensitivity to cut all of the canes while protecting the cordon. The photo from the cab of our trial tractor gives you a bit of an idea of what we have been doing.

The computer on the left is collecting the LiDAR information and the one on the right is collecting the normal video.

Digital spray diary

We have been looking at the development of a new electronic spray diary to be rolled out in the 2022-23 season.

The system will be similar to the ones used in the wine grape industry, but will include all of the necessary requirements for dried grape production.

While we will still likely produce a paper version, it is hoped that in time the whole industry will go digital with its spray records.

10 Tonne Project

On 21 December and 27 January we were finally able to get out and visit the demonstration sites for the Australian Government-funded 10 Tonne project.

All of the crops this season were looking to improve on 2020-21 harvest results.

Another key part of the last year of this project is the use of inline yield monitoring systems to identify good and poor performing parts of the vineyard.

This will help to improve decision making across patches to support achieving 10 tonne per hectare yields.

The system from Advanced Viticulture Technologies weighs fruit continuously as it moves off the delivery belt of the harvester and links this information to accurate GPS data so we should be able to map yield variation nearly down to the individual vine. v

Stuart Putland Dried Fruits Australia field officer 03 5023 5174 projects@driedfruitsaustralia.org.au