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Hello from Mountain View Orchards.
The 2011 chestnut harvest is underway and with the above average Spring and Summer rainfall its looking like a bumper crop – but unfortunately not for us here at Mountain View Chestnuts. Last August Jane and I noticed a suspicious looking canker on a tree on our home orchard. Although we had seen similar cankers on some trees affected from root rot on our Great Alpine Rd orchard this one appeared on an otherwise healthy tree. We decided it should be investigated and sent a sample to the Department of Primary Industries in Victoria to have it tested.
It was identified as Chestnut blight – Cryphonectria parasitica which is a fungus that infects chestnut trees in the Northern Hemisphere but up until now was unknown in Australia. It also has the potential to infect eucalyptus trees and if you Google chestnut blight you’ll see the devastating affects it had on the native forests when it was introduced into America in the early 1900’s.
The Victorian Department of Primary Industries (DPI) initiated a full scale biosecurity response and over the next 3 months some 150,000 chestnut trees around Victoria were checked by DPI surveillance teams. Infections were found on nine properties all located in the Upper Ovens Valley area of NE Victoria. It is thought that the blight has been in Australia for many years and that it was brought in on infected grafting material illegally smuggled into Australia. Our property on the Great Alpine Road was located nearby a highly infected grove and we have contracted the fungus simply by location.
As part of the eradication plan being implemented by DPI our entire Great Alpine Rd Orchard has been destroyed and over half of our home orchard has gone as well. The remaining trees on our home orchard which account for only 10% of our total production cannot be harvested for two years due to the risk of possible infections in the chestnuts if they were to be planted. As you might imagine we are personally devastated by these events and although all affected growers are to be paid some compensation for the loss of income and costs associated with the replanting of the orchards nothing is going to compensate for the loss of our life’s work. This year is the first year in the past 25 years that we have not harvested chestnuts and it all feels very strange.
We know how much you appreciate good quality chestnuts and with the help of some lovely local growers who have agreed to supply us, we plan to continue to sell easy to peel, tasty De Coppi chestnuts until we can get back on our feet. We want to help all our loyal customers who we have personally supported us over the past ten years and leaving everyone without a supply of quality nuts just isn’t an option.
Fresh chestnuts will be ready for dispatch from next Monday – 11 April 2011 so please feel free to put your orders in this week and we’ll get the parcels ready for dispatch over next weekend.
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