Welcome to the Just Avocados spring read.
It felt like winter was never coming only a month or two ago and then all of a sudden it arrived, with temperatures dropping and the rain falling. Of course, this coincided with export harvest activity and this has made consistent harvest challenging over the last four to six weeks.
Fruit quality is a consistent theme throughout this edition and Managing harvest throughout these wetter months is critical to ensure that we get a better outcome than achieved last season. This does not just mean internal fruit quality or rots but cosmetically too.
Harvesting around wet weather events has an absolute impact on cosmetic quality as the fruit is more susceptible to post harvest damage on the turgid lenticels and our Asian customer base has an extremely low tolerance for this. I am aware that the wet weather can be frustrating when you feel that you are being held up to harvest, so please be patient with us if we ask you to hold off for two to three days or if your intended harvest period moves by 2 to 3 days, the aim is to only achieve the best outcome for your fruit and build strong markets outside of Australia for this season and seasons ahead.
Since the end of the 2018-19 season we have communicated our strategy of focusing on Asia and limiting exposure to the Australian wholesale market which will prove to be depressed from a value perspective over the next few months.
There has been a change with the team since our last update; John Emett has relocated to Whangarei recently. Supply north of Auckland has been a strong growth area for Just Avocados and being able to place a full-time grower services representative there will provide fantastic support to the growers and I am sure that they will enjoy having John around more often.
In this edition of the newsletter, Nathan Darling provides insights how harvesters are doing their bit to improve fruit quality, John updates you on what he is observing in Northland, Kyra provides a view into the wonderful world of fungal activity and how that benefits your orchard and Erica explains all of the factors that contribute to fruit quality.
Regards,
Jarrod