DFA chair, CEO & industry updates

Growing opportunities in dried grapes

News from our chair

What a trying season it’s been. With a cooler summer, the grapes have taken a lot longer to dry. Some areas have had rain, and some missed it.

Workers are few and far between and some are just showing up because they have to, while others want you to pay them many times the going rate. With the removal of the piece rate as we know it, wages will be higher on most properties, and this has also made drying a slower process because of a later cutting of the canes.

Prices appear to have increased worldwide as well as here. The quality of the fruit has been good – big berries and full of sugar – which will help growers with the extra costs.

Growers need to be watching the weather. If rain is approaching, it’s better to have fruit that is 18 per cent or below off the vines and in the shed able to be dehydrated. Leaving fruit on the vine can cost you more in the long run, considering the extra cost of drying and possible lower grades.

I’m making it sound all doom and gloom, but it’s not! We have a great product that’s in demand by the processors, which can’t be said in the wine industry. We’ve had quite a few wine and table grape growers, along with some corporates, talking to our field officer Stuart and myself about planting some of the new varieties that are yielding about 10 tonnes to the hectare. The forecasts are suggesting that the issues affecting the wine and table grape industries will be around for a few years.

News from our CEO

The DFA team has been very busy over the last few months with lots of projects.

Organising our annual Grower Forum as well as the Dried Fruit Quality Awards and new Top Crop Awards for Mildura Field Days; working on biosecurity manuals; collaborating with other agencies and hort industry peak bodies to try and recruit casual seasonal workers for pruning; focussing on traceability by connecting with GrapeWeb for an online spray diary; and working with archivist Nikki Henningham to ensure the protection of the dried grape industry’s valuable historic information.

DFA is appreciative of the support shown by Hort Innovation in sponsoring the 2022 Grower Forum, which was held in April. We continue to work closely with Hort Innovation through our Production, Innovation and Adoption Program and Industry Communications Program, and thank them for their support in the ongoing development of export marketing.

We’re also grateful to the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment for extending our 10 Tonne Project for a further 12 months. Featured at the Grower Forum, this project has provided a range of benefits through irrigation monitoring and other technology to assist with increasing dried grape production. Its continuation means there will be further data and practices available to growers for adoption on farm.

Through forums such as the NFF Horticulture Council and meetings with government representatives, DFA has been advocating strongly on issues for the dried grape industry, including access to workforce, piece rate issues, traceability, and chemical residues. We’ll continue to work hard in representing these issues to policymakers. v

Mark King | Chair Anne Mansell | CEO

Productive start to 2022

DRIED GRAPE PRODUCTION INNOVATION & ADOPTION PROGRAM 2021-26

While harvest is normally a quiet time for the DFA extension program, this season has been a little different.

There have been several things on the go since late January when we squeezed in the last of our 10 Tonne Project site tours for the season. Thanks to Malcolm and Stephen Bennett, David Lyons, John Hunt and Mark Luehman for continuing with the trial sites and giving us all a good overview of their programs.

It was great to see the scale of planning that goes into harvest preparations at the Duxton demonstration site in Liparoo. Mark Luehman and the team were able to give us some great insight into how to run a successful vineyard at large scale.

David Lyons took us to another section of his property to look at his sultana production system, which has been fully mechanically pruned for the last four seasons and continues to deliver solid production figures. The system David has developed gives us great confidence that complete mechanisation of pruning is achievable with a little more research, trialling and demonstrations. If you want to get more information on this, please check out the DFA YouTube channel and listen to David explain how it’s been operating.

The robotic pruning project – a collaboration with La Trobe University and Mallee Regional Innovation Centre – continued with more trials on vineyards in mid-April. There was a really important step forward in these trials as it was the first time we were able to fully test the LiDAR sensing system and have it control the cutting head.

As a first-up trial it was a great success. The biggest challenge for me as the tractor driver was just keeping a straight line and not trying to follow the cordon! The sensing system worked well, moving the cutting head in and out to match the cordon. It could move the head in and out a distance of about 300mm. All I needed to do was keep the outside edge of the front tyre under the bottom wire of the trellis and adjust vertically for any big dips in the cordon – the robot did the rest. For some great drone footage of the trial, have another look at the DFA YouTube channel.

There is still work to go getting the sensing system “dialed in” to some peculiarities of cordon, but we are becoming more confident in the system each time we take it out for a run.

This harvest has also allowed DFA to trial a yield monitoring system. Bernd Kleinlagel from Advanced Technology Viticulture has installed the system in John Hunt’s harvester as part of the 10 Tonne Project. John has been called on to complete some of the final installation bits and coordinate getting harvest data properly calibrated and recorded.

The system allows us to track the harvester in real time operation, and within 48 hours of the completion of a block, Bernd has been able to deliver yield maps that compare the relative yield across the patch – nearly down to the individual vine. The data is great and the maps are fantastic, but the real work will begin when we start discussing with the growers how they can use the information to make production system changes that will improve their yields.

The last chunk of work that has been going on during harvest is the development of an online spray diary for the dried grape industry. See page 30 for more details. v

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

DFA field officer Stuart Putland with La Trobe University’s Professor Robert Ross and PhD student Matt Felicetti at April’s trial session with the prototype mechanical pruner.