
Despite expanding their orchard Martin and James Simpfendorfer cannot keep up with demand. Photo courtesy ABC Rural: Jessica Schremmer.
A cold winter and hot summer has given pistachio growers good reason to celebrate, with many farmers harvesting great volumes despite being in the “off-year” crop cycle — and demand for the green nut is rising rapidly. Robinvale pistachio grower and director of Australian Pioneer Pistachio Company, Chris Joyce, said looking at the two-year average the industry was doing well and growers were confident.
“Pistachios are an alternate-bearing crop, so one year they have a big crop and the next year they have a much lesser crop,” he said. “In 2018 we had a record crop and in 2019 we had the inevitable off-crop, significantly less than the previous crop.