Greetings Achacha people from the team at the Achacha Plantation!

Well, another year has flashed by and we now anxiously await the start of 2017 harvest. It hardly seems like eight years since we put our first Achachas on the market. We have been receiving lots of emails and phone calls asking where the fruit is. The truth is it’s still on the trees but starting to take on a deeper orange each week. It will take a little while longer to sweeten up. We thank you for you support and your patience and hope you will enjoy this season’s Achachas very soon – probably early February.

The years 2015 and 2016 were some of the driest and hottest on record, with the area declared a drought zone. In 2015-16 the usual wet season, December to March didn’t happen. February’s record high temperatures played havoc with the fruit and it lost its normal long shelf life so our season was short. With irrigation our trees survived well but would have benefited from natural rainfall. Then winter went by without a cold period, required to bring on flowering; eventually the flowers came, six weeks later than usual. The poor trees seem to be confused by the climatic conditions.

Joy! Right now we are getting some very nice showers which the trees are loving. The fruit is ripening, much later than usual. A couple more weeks should see pallets on the way to the markets.

Image courtesy Peter Wallis, Courier Mail.