Flavour boosts desire for stonefruit

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Appearance may attract but it is the flavour that will determine how keen consumers will be to return to buy more stonefruit.

This has been the experience of Renmark-based Lowana Fruits whose business is based on supplying markets which are willing to promote fruit on more than price and appearance.

Dino and Mark Ceracchi who are behind the success of Lowana say they set out to do things well because they grew up in the Riverland knowing what it was like to experience the typical rich fruit taste of peaches, nectarines and apricots.

“Breeders are doing their job by giving greater attention now to better eating varieties,” Dino said. “It has taken a while though for sufficient attention to be given not only to sugar development but also to the acids and those critical components under the skin which inject the flavour.”

The brothers say that retailers, too, can do more to ensure customers are not turned off after biting into fruit that is big on appearance but short on taste or which has been picked at the wrong time or stored too long.

Growers with an eye on flavour generally understand how to get results but know this can be labour intensive and costly.

An efficient irrigation system is essential. There can be no under-watering during a hot spell and incorrect scheduling can mean delays in fruit development. There are also critical times like bud development and flowering when it is critical to avoid stress.

The irrigation system has an additional role as the vehicle for nutrients, which must be well-timed and formulated to produce quality fruit.

While irrigation has to be precise it is an operation which is largely automated. It contributes significantly to costs of production but the largest cost is labour due to the amount of careful work required for pruning, thinning, picking and other operations. Fruit thinning alone can cost up to $4,000 per hectare and picking around $7000 per hectare.

Caption: Mark and Dino Ceracchi

Citation

Land & Water Australia. 2010. Flavour boosts desire for stonefruit . [Online] (Updated November 29th, 2010)
Available at: http://lwa.gov.au/node/3796 [Accessed Thursday 1st of March 2012 07:28:54 AM ].