TWO alpine orchardists are reporting a good start to this year's apple harvest as picking began this month.
Don Nightingale, of Nightingales Bros fruit producers in Wandiligong, said they had just finished harvesting around 2000 bins of Royal Galas and were set to begin harvesting Kanzi apples this week.
"All Kanzi are looking very good – good colour, good size," he said.
"That would go for about two to three weeks.
"Then Granny Smith follow immediately, they're looking good – good crops, sizing fairly well."
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Nightingales Bros are expecting to harvest around 6000 bins of Pink Lady apples – their largest crop, according to Mr Nightingale.
One bin equates to around 400 kilograms of apples.
He said the Pink Lady harvesting will go from around mid–April to early May.
"That crop is sizing well – colours not showing yet, but we'll get the colour as we get the cooler nights," he said.
Mr Nightingale said they stayed on top of fungus issues during the wet weather late last year, and since the weather dried around Christmas time the season had looked strong.
He also said finding fruit pickers and other seasonal workers hadn't been an issue.
According to Mr Nightingale, the company use picking machines that slowly move along the lines of fruit trees, speeding up their fruit picking.
The pickers, some elevated to the middle and top parts of the trees, put the fruit into elevators which take it to a central bin.
"It does away with ladders, it does away with bags," he said.
Stanley orchardist Henry Hilton said the November rains had no impact on his apple crops.
Due to the local climate, he said his apple crops start around three weeks later than other areas.
"We're currently picking Gala, and we're about to start Honeycrisp," he said.
"We've got no problem with diseases or pests."
Mr Hilton said they are still picking berries, which had been a good season, despite the November rains having a small impact.
