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2010
3 October 2010
$5 million industry blossoms
A new industry with the potential to inject $5 million into the Mid-Western Region economy reaches a milestone in the coming months, when local cherry growers will harvest their first commercial crop.
Brent Bannister of the Australian Cherry Alliance said about 40,000 cherry trees have been planted in the region over the last three years, more new trees than in the state’s cherry capital, Young.
With the trees now flowering, growers are waiting to see how much fruit the first of these trees to come into production will yield.
Mr Bannister said two orchards, Carramar at Eurunderee and the Thornbury on the Castlereagh Highway near Gulgong, would come into production this year.
Thornbury Vineyards manager Craig Stubbs said approximately 8000 of the 16,000 trees planted at the property were in their fourth flowering and he hoped to harvest 25 tonnes of fruit in late November.
Mr Stubbs said conditions in the Mid-Western district compared favourably with Young for cherry growing.
In order for cherry trees to set, temperatures must drop below 7 degrees for at least 1000 hours and the region meets this requirement.
“We are the first big grower in the district, so the jury’s out,” Mr Stubbs said. “We need to just wait and see.”
Mr Stubbs said that at this stage, the orchard would rely on local pickers and expects to employ around 100 people for the short picking season this year.
Fruit will be graded and packed in Orange and sold through the Sydney markets or exported to Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Middle East, he said.
Mr Stubbs said with the wine industry “really on its knees”, cherry trees were a way of diversifying from grapes, cattle or wool.
Mr Bannister said while the cherry industry would rely on local labour in its first years, he hoped Mudgee and district would eventually become part of the harvest trail.
He expects around 75 per cent of the regional crop will go the export market.
“In full production, with 40,000 trees, there is potential there for a $5 million a year business,” he said1 .