Cherry growers happy with summer season

Central Otago cherry growers are happy with the summer season.

Central Otago's summer cherry crop did not quite make the record books but orchardists were still happy with the season, Summerfruit New Zealand chief executive officer Marie Dawkins said.

Orchardists had been on track for a record season mid-summer, hoping to export more than the 2015-16 national record of 3400 tonnes of cherries, Ms Dawkins said.

Central Otago produces 90% of the nation's export cherries.

However, rain in January had affected the Central Otago crop, and national exports for 2016-17 ended up being 3346 tonnes, Ms Dawkins said.

But although the record was not broken, orchardists had still been ''very happy'' with the volumes that were exported.

''The rain did have an impact, but not as major as it could have been - it's hard to know how much the rain knocked out. But it wasn't enough to change things too much - nobody's crying that I know of.

''Of course it would have been nice to have a full crop - that's always the icing on the cake. But everyone I spoke with was pretty happy with the season.''

Ms Dawkins had said in January that when bad weather affected crops it was important to remember how much the cherry export industry had grown in the past few years. Three seasons ago, in 2013-14, New Zealand exported 1600 tonnes of cherries.

She said annual cherry exports were expected to continue increasing, and there were ''lots of'' projected plantings in Central Otago.

Asia continued to be the main market for export cherries, with Taiwan and China the main single markets respectively.

However, China was expected to overtake Taiwan and become New Zealand's main cherry market soon.

''We could send everything to China and it would still disappear.''

Some orchardists were also looking at the Indian market and small volumes were being exported there, but that was a ''whole different story'' to be considered by orchardists in the future, Ms Dawkins said.