Flying foxes, frost bite
From the August 2006 edition of Agriculture Today.
Flying foxes took 25 per cent of this year’s fruit on Brett Guthrey’s persimmon farm near Camden before the crop was ripe, and a severe frost burnt 60pc of what remained, two days after Anzac Day.
Mr Guthrey got normal prices for 40pc of what he called a “reasonable crop” – 8000 trays, approximately 32 tonnes – in an “above average year”.
Farming at “Kathleen Haven” at Cobbitty is a year by year proposition for Brett and his family.
He is a former chef whose extended family circumstances redirected him to the earthy end of the food supply chain.
His good fortune is that he supplies the traditional softer, astringent hachiya variety of persimmons to a niche market, mostly in Sydney, where the growing climate is good and his fruit reaches the market before the more popular variety.
Brett’s main consumers of this richly flavoured, bright orange, smooth skinned fruit – older generation Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians, particularly Koreans – prefer hachiya.
“The most popular variety nowadays worldwide is the non-astringent fuyu, which constitutes about 80 per cent of plantings in Australia,” Camden district horticulturist, Lawrence Ullio, said.
“Astringent types can only be eaten when soft, while non-astringents can be eaten firm, like an apple, as well as soft.”
Fuyus are mostly grown in Queensland, coastal NSW and to a lesser extent, South Australia and Victoria.
Whilst they’re the minor crop, hachiya are being enjoyed and demanded by more mainstream consumers.
“Kathleen Haven”, located on the Nepean River, has nine hectares of persimmons – two hectares of mature trees bearing hachiya, with an another five hectares just starting to come into production this year, plus two hectares of mature fuyu.
Brett says his grandfather first planted 30 years ago and “used to receive all sorts of rootstocks from people”.
“Their initial hachiya stock came from the former NSW Agriculture, brought from Japan more than 40 years ago,” Mr Ullio said.
Trees take 15 years to reach maturity but live for hundreds of years.
Brett’s second stable source of income is spring water which he supplies for bottling but another factor that makes his enterprise a partial lottery is urban encroachment.
“After thinking we might have to attempt to co-exist alongside a nursing home, the proposal was shelved after State government laws changed earlier this year,” Brett said.
For more general information, go to www.agric.nsw.gov.au/reader/hortcrops-other, then click on the “Persimmon growing” link.
Contact Brett Guthrey, Cobbitty, (02) 4651 2247 or Lawrence Ullio, Camden, (02) 4640 6408.
