Bring on 2024

AUSTRALIAN PREMIUM DRIED FRUITS

After a very challenging wet 2022 season, we are already feeling the effects of Mother Nature on the 2023 crop. Most growers have some disease losses from downy mildew outbreaks, with the most serious being complete wipeout before Christmas.

We sympathise with our growers who have been hit hard by downy mildew. We desperately hoped for a better year after the difficult season prior delivered rain-affected grades and lower than acceptable returns for all the hard work put in.

At the time of writing, we are unsure of the estimated volumes for the new season, as uncertainty remains over whether minor affected bunches with downy mildew will make it to harvest. We remain optimistic and hope growers get some well overdue luck. Some observations on the downy mildew effects from different situations are worth noting. Very few growers have ever seen a downy mildew outbreak as bad as this season’s. Some of the very experienced growers have compared it to the outbreak of 1974, when most of the district was wiped out (2011 was another bad year for downy mildew).

Chemical costs and shortages made the management of downy mildew extremely difficult for all growers. Timeliness is essential when managing disease outbreaks. We saw large corporate properties struggle, as their ability to spray during the infection period is limited, based on capacity. It takes numerous days to spray large properties with the available equipment and labour, so this means the disease can already be prevalent by the time spray is applied. We have seen the best results from growers who were prepared and able to spray on time and for as long as it takes to get the spray on. In saying this, growers with severely infected properties close by still felt major impacts from the disease if they were next to other seriously infected properties.

Any flooded areas, where spraying was not possible, also played a major role in the spread of the infection through a vineyard. Secondary and tertiary infections also continued to re-infect many of the properties that had been controlled with the early sprays. There are numerous opinions on the effect downy mildew will have on the final crop outcome. Time will tell.

After a big reduction in volume in 2022 and the impending lower crop of 2023, we are already looking forward to 2024. APDF has a great outlook for the future, with annual volumes well over 10,000 tonnes. We remain positive about the future and hope 2024 will be the start of many solid seasons for our industry.

We are extremely happy with the initial roll out of the industry digital spray diary. Most growers have been using the diary as it’s designed, which is a great tool not only for recording sprays, but also to ensure correct chemicals and rates are applied. As with any new technology developments, they require some effort to educate the user, but once up to speed, growers will find the digital spray diary extremely easy and useful going forward. Please embrace this step forward for our industry and make every effort to adopt this spray diary.

We continue to relocate some of the processing equipment from

MRO Mourquong facility acquired in 2021. This January-March we are relocating the pre-riddler, which is a major piece of equipment. Although another process when handling the fruit, this pre-riddler enables us to pre-clean and size grade fruit before final processing of the product. We see great opportunities going forward to supply current and new markets with higher spec fruit by pre-processing through this high quality pre-riddler. Best of luck to all growers going into the 2023 harvest. There is no doubt we deserve some “normal” conditions to allow us to dry and harvest the crop that remains, so we at least have great quality to supply our customers to lead us into 2024 v

Enquiries: Grower liaison officer Larry Dichiera larry@apdf.com.au 0488 199 221