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Tasmanian cherry farmers expect the crop this season to be more than double that of last year. (ABC News)
Tasmanian cherry growers are looking at a bumper season, after frosts cut last year's crop to about 2,000 tonnes.
Growers expect to almost double that before the season ends.
The season's first container for export was loaded this morning, bound for California, and worth an estimated $US200,000.
The Chairwoman of the Stone Fruit Council, Lucy Gregg says it is hoped another one or two containers will be exported to the United States before the season is over, in about three weeks.
"The potential for this market is enormous especially as our industry increases capacity.
"We need destinations like this to move significant quantities of fruit and potentially next season we could potentially do six or eight containers into the US."
Ms Gregg says there is already been a big improvement on last year's harvest.
"This season's looking to be one of the most successful seasons we've had for numerous years," she said.
"Obviously, last year we had the frosts which severely impacted on the crops.
"We would expect that we'd harvest between 3,000 and 4,000 tonnes this year which is nearly double what we harvested last year."
Ms Gregg believes even stronger growth is likely over the next couple of years.
"The Tasmanian industry is increasing rapidly and we expect that by 2010 we could potentially be harvesting 7,000 tonnes so this is why we need to develop these export markets to handle large volumes of fruit."
Tasmanian cherry farmers expect the crop this season to be more than double that of last year. (ABC News)
Tasmanian cherry growers are looking at a bumper season, after frosts cut last year's crop to about 2,000 tonnes.
Growers expect to almost double that before the season ends.
The season's first container for export was loaded this morning, bound for California, and worth an estimated $US200,000.
The Chairwoman of the Stone Fruit Council, Lucy Gregg says it is hoped another one or two containers will be exported to the United States before the season is over, in about three weeks.
"The potential for this market is enormous especially as our industry increases capacity.
"We need destinations like this to move significant quantities of fruit and potentially next season we could potentially do six or eight containers into the US."
Ms Gregg says there is already been a big improvement on last year's harvest.
"This season's looking to be one of the most successful seasons we've had for numerous years," she said.
"Obviously, last year we had the frosts which severely impacted on the crops.
"We would expect that we'd harvest between 3,000 and 4,000 tonnes this year which is nearly double what we harvested last year."
Ms Gregg believes even stronger growth is likely over the next couple of years.
"The Tasmanian industry is increasing rapidly and we expect that by 2010 we could potentially be harvesting 7,000 tonnes so this is why we need to develop these export markets to handle large volumes of fruit."
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