Unrelenting rain over the past month has resulted in a tough start to Victoria's cherry and berry season with growers struggling against poor-quality and dying trees, and boggy orchards.
Lois and Bill Hotson have been growing cherries on an orchard outside Chiltern in north-east Victoria for 40 years and said this year had been difficult.
"To this point, we can describe it as a challenging year, but it's not all doom and gloom," Mr Hotson said.
"The biggest impact on us has been for our early season varieties.
"Some of them were big, beautiful cherries before the rain came and they split pretty badly.
"Some we've walked away from, some we've fed to the cows, and some we've had to sell for a very reduced price.
"But we should have some very good cherries right now through to Christmas."
Mr Hotson said, due to a short supply of quality fruit, prices had gone up in supermarkets.
"Cherries are selling at a fairly premium price at the moment. From what I'm hearing all around, prices are up because of short supply.
"I think overall, as long as we don't have too much wet weather between now and Christmas, we'll be OK. Just OK."
'Cherries don't like wet feet'
Mr Hotson is one of many growers with water-damaged fruit trees this season.
He said he would most likely lose a whole block of trees that were already deteriorating.
"In this particular block they've been in water for some time now, and a substantial amount of these trees will die," he said.
"Cherries don't like wet feet."
Wet conditions have led to boggy ground, making it hard to get machinery onto the orchard for maintenance.
"The rest of the orchard we can get onto and we can manage it well, but we can't get any machinery on this block. It's had no attention," Mr Hotson said.
"Also, the cost of picking has gone up because pickers have to grade out the cherries more before they get to the packing shed.
"Cherries are high reward if you get it, but high risk and we know that."
Bad start to berry season
Gippsland's berry season has also been delayed due to wet weather and damaged fruit.
The owner of South's Sunny Creek Organic Berry Farm in Trafalgar, Cathie Taylor, said picking would be pushed back three weeks and would not start until the week before Christmas.
Ms Taylor said in the lead-up to Christmas there was always a huge demand for raspberries and blackberries, and due to the shortage prices would go up.
"As soon as Christmas Day comes, the demand for raspberries, particularly, just plummets."
She said many of the berries starting to come out were suffering from hail damage.
"Every day that it's very wet, you can't pick, so instead of the raspberries ending up in the wholesale market at a premium price, they end up in the freezer as jam grade," Ms Taylor said.
Ms Taylor was glad to have backpackers back at Sunny Creek for the first time in two years, but with the delayed season she was unsure if there would be much to pick.
"[If] the berries aren't ready when they arrive, then we will just have to get them to do farm work," she said.
Ms Taylor said a silver lining was that the pick-your-own side of the business would have more berries available in the school holidays and after Christmas when it's most popular.
