Rain fails to affect kiwi harvests, as Victorian pickers race to finish

Jade Quality farm manager Wayne Roman, Bowmans Forest, said the downpour one week ago failed to affect harvest, with only a half-day of picking missed.

"It has no effect on our fruit, only if it's wet we can't pick, which is the only concern," he said.

"It only rained overnight here on Monday so by Tuesday we were picking again."

He said the kiwi fruit had fluctuated in size this year, compared to the previous harvest's "really big fruit".

Mr Roman said in the past two years, Jade Quality lost 700 plants to floods in each spring because they neighboured a river.

"This year it seems to be quite a mix of larger and smaller fruit," he said.

"It's a little bit surprising considering how much summer rain we had."

Mr Roman said they started harvesting on March 21 and had about three weeks left to pick.

He said before the COVID-19 pandemic, they mostly hired backpackers but had started employing workers from the Pacific Islands through the Federal Government scheme.

"If it's successful it'll be quite beneficial for us," he said.

"With our winter pruning which is really labour intensive, there is quite a technique to it so anyone who has done it before is a real asset."

He said current prices were fine, but had experienced rising labour, transport and fuel costs.

"The market has been able to handle increases in our prices to compensate for that," he said.

Mr Roman said all pruning was done by hand, with 30 people for 80-85 days during winter, and 60 workers during the harvest period.

"We have very high input costs, that's one of the main issues with kiwi fruit is we have very little mechanical aides available to us so there's high labour," he said.

"We're about a quarter of the way through at the moment, plenty more to go, we're just looking for things to continue as they are and the weather to play its part and get them off as soon as possible."

Seeka Australia Pty Ltd operations general manager Jonathan Van Popering, Bunbartha, said their harvest was "smooth sailing" so far, as 35 pickers started harvesting multiple orchards on March 9.

He said they had about eight weeks left of harvest.

"It was a little bit earlier than normal, it's an earlier season this season," he said.

"It's really good quality, great size profile and great volumes."

He said there had been one rain delay, but were able to pick and pack good numbers in the early opening season and retained good volumes on hand.

Seeka Australia exports to Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, among other markets.

"Last year was a really average season, it was for a lot of growers in the Goulburn Valley due to hail events and rain events," he said.

"The volume is up more than 50pc than last year, back to normal."

Mr Van Popering said they had the capability to pick up pace if needed, but there were no immediate challenges.

"If we lost a week due to rain we could recover from that quite easily," he said.

"We have more capacity in the shed than what we supply, it's smooth sailing."