Cherry picker Vahri Libeau (front) at Plum Cottage Cherries alongside fellow pickers (from left) Sabine van Derwerff, owner Vera Treacher, Abby Clark and Bethany Clark. Photo / Paul Taylor
Cherry picker Vahri Libeau (front) at Plum Cottage Cherries alongside fellow pickers (from left) Sabine van Derwerff, owner Vera Treacher, Abby Clark and Bethany Clark. Photo / Paul Taylor
High-quality Christmas cherries will be harder to come by this year following a freak weather event.
Heavy rainfall across Hawke's Bay last week damaged a range of berry crops, with cherries among the worst hit.
Cherries have a relatively short window for picking, which falls around this time of year,and they tend to split when impacted by heavy rainfall.
Plum Cottage Cherries, in Havelock North, owner Vera Treacher has been growing and selling delicious cherries since 2004 at her cherry farm and said the heavy rainfall had caused a lot of damage to her crops.
"I am estimating that 60 to 70 per cent [of my cherries] have been damaged by the rain," she said.
"I have a couple of varieties and this variety the Stella - which is the Christmas variety for me - they weren't ripe to pick on the day before the rain."
She said she was now having to sell a lot of the latest crop as "seconds" at a cheaper rate.
Treacher said customers still enjoyed the seconds, and she was hopeful this week she would be able to pick the surviving top-quality cherries for her loyal customers.
"I am hoping [when we pick again] there will still be a few firsts for my orders."
Fortunately, she said they started picking in mid-November and had picked two other varieties of cherries, which had both sold well.
Treacher said these kind of weather events happened every now and again.
"They always say one out of every five years is a bad year - and this is our one out of five."
Scott's Strawberry Farm, in Havelock North, owner Billy Scott said strawberry growers had also been affected.
Strawberry grower Billy Scott, from Scott's Strawberry Farm.
"It has impacted us in terms of the present crop and has pretty much taken 80 per cent of that fruit, that is there, out.
"With strawberries you are lucky because the crop comes again because you have other fruit ripening," he said.
"There is going to be a lot in the next few days of 'seconds' because whatever fruit is good is slightly damaged ... and it can't be sold as a class one berry."
Fortunately, he said the next crop of strawberries would likely be ready to pick this week and had not been affected.
"The fruit that is white or green is okay and it is about whether that will ripen in time for Christmas."
He said the heavy rainfall had also affected berry growers in Hamilton and Auckland, which would have an impact nationwide for people buying berries.
He said raspberry and boysenberry growers had also been severely impacted as those berries can turn to mush under heavy rain.
Yummy Fruit Company general manager Paul Paynter said heavy rainfall at this time of year was good for some sectors and terrible for others.
"We have a lot of very, very happy farmers that I'm pleased for following a couple of difficult drought years.
"In general the apple growers are pretty happy - there will be a bit of pressure in terms of fungal pathogens ... but everyone else is unhappy," he said.
"The grape guys have definitely got some issues ... and the berries will be smashed with that sort of rain.
"[That includes] the Christmas cherries and if you have got apricots, apricots hate rain like that."
