Consumers in New South Wales can expect to see a rise in the cost of stone fruits following a poor harvest brought on by record rainfall in late 2022.
The flood-affected Central West and Riverina are two of the largest regions in the state for growing summer fruits such as peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots.
Orchard owner Paula Charnock, based in Orange, said conditions had been challenging.
"Unfortunately, it is not a great apricot season; when they were in flower we were having lots of rain and the bees couldn't get out so we had very poor pollination," Ms Charnock said.
"The ones that did set, a lot of them just fell off because of the rain so we have a very light apricot crop this year."
Ms Charnock said the conditions contributed to the spread of diseases in apples and stone fruits.
"Black spot is one that is particularly difficult to manage in wet years so we have had to do a really good spray program on the fruit to keep them clean," she said.
Reliance on Queensland crop
While growers across the south-east states of NSW and Victoria have seen reduced yields, producers in Queensland are looking at a bumper stone fruit crop.
The executive officer of Summer Fruit Australia Trevor Ranford said consumers could expect to see more fruit from the Sunshine State in supermarkets.
"The Queensland industry had a very good year and the production has been strong; they weren't affected by the level of the floods that occurred in the southern states," he said.
Mr Ranford said it had been an "extremely difficult" harvest so far for the majority of stone fruit growers in Australia, but the recent hot weather raised hopes for a late harvest.
"Across the board it's been another difficult season, particularly at the start, but things have improved," he said.
"We have a range of varieties within the stone fruits that come on at different times so it gives the season a longer period.
"We could continue to see harvest into February and March."
