With only a small number of late variety peaches and plums left in orchards, the summerfruit season is almost over and Central Otago orchardists are beginning to add up the cost of the wet summer.
"It has been a very trying season," Summerfruit New Zealand chairman and Roxburgh grower Gary Bennetts said.
"A lot of growers probably won't break even."
Central Otago growers, though only representing 36% of growers throughout the country, are responsible for more than half of the country's output of summerfruit, specifically apricots and cherries which are the two biggest export crops.
Though final figures are not in, according to Summerfruit New Zealand's website, just over 1000 tonnes of apricots and 1600 tonnes of cherries were exported from New Zealand in the 2011-12 season.
Mr Bennetts said those figures were considerably less than previous seasons.
He estimated there was about $45 million worth of cherry trees planted in Central Otago but only a third of that would be seen by growers this season due to lighter crops and ruined fruit.
He did not have a figure for apricots but it would also be "way down".
He said overall fruit volumes were down but then orchards were hit by periods of wet weather causing them to lose good fruit.
"[It was] not a good season ... we lost so much fruit through rain. Different growers in different areas were affected differently."
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research climate statistics show Central Otago had more than 125% of normal rainfall in January, a crucial month for fruit.
Too much rain can make cherries split and cause apricots to discolour. Earlier this year, some growers were estimating up to 70% of their crops would be lost and many said it would be economically unviable to pick whole blocks of fruit.
However, Mr Bennetts said competition from an increasingly strong Chilean market and the high New Zealand dollar was also affecting the industry.
Like all export industries, orchardists are suffering the effects of the exchange rate.
They do not get a high return for their products and it makes it harder to sell to some markets due to transport costs, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States.
The New Zealand dollar is hovering around the US82c mark. This time last year, it was around US73c, the year before, it was around US70c and in 2009, it was around the US56c mark.
Mr Bennetts said the market for cherries was not as bad as that for apricots because the Asian market took a lot of cherries, but Chilean growers were becoming a threat.
He said Chile had exported about 70,000 tonnes of cherries and it was becoming hard to compete because it was relatively cheap to produce fruit there.
"The costs are so much more here. The cost of compliance is growing, and transport costs."
For apricots, he said New Zealand growers were reliant on the Australian market but bad weather there affected their own crops and so New Zealand fruit had to compete with Australian fruit that had been marked down due to rain damage.
