DANIEL and Angela Jackson grow delicious but delicate fruit, but they know the hard work it takes to grow them is worth it.
Growing custard apples is ‘difficult’ says Daniel, because consumers turn up their noses at anything that looks blemished on the outside.
Custard apples bruise easily and while their creamy inners are just as tasty as those which are blemish free, it’s the first impression that makes growing them a rather tedious process.
For a few months every year the Jackson’s ‘fit bits’ get a right royal workout.
Early in the year, the custard apple orchard is walked by the couple on a weekly basis as they check for the one or two pieces that have matured.
“At that stage we may only pick one or two pieces per tree and you’ll go back the next week and another few pieces will be ready,” Daniel Jackson said.
“And then when you get into the peak, which for us is around Easter’s full moon, you might be picking 20 pieces per tree.”
The Jacksons have lived on their farm for seven years and when they bought the property it already had mature custard apple trees.
“We’ve recently planted more trees so they range from three to around 21 years old,” he said.
“They are a fairly hardy tree and respond well to pruning and nutrition but there is quite a lot of work in the off season with pruning.                                                                              “We normally come through with a mechanical pruner, taking the outside limbs off and then we strip all the leaves off by hand to promote flowering for the next year.
“Then you hand prune them by cutting out small twigs or overlapping branches, cutting them back to 20cm length similar to what you’d do in a vineyard.
“This coaxes them to shoot, to sprout, to flower.”
He said upwards of 300 custard apples could be expected from one healthy tree but quantity affected quality.
“We keep an eye on how they are producing and if there are too many fruit forming we thin them out just to get better individual sizes,” he said.
“If you are growing 300 fruit [on a tree] then they wouldn’t be the size we need them to be.
“It’s too much load for the tree to handle so we like to thin them back to about 100 to 120 pieces per tree.”
The Jackson’s orchards produce around 12,000 trays of custard apples a year and each tray holds approximately 15 pieces of fruit.
“There are small amounts of custard apples that make their way into Australia’s major chain supermarkets,” he said.
“What’s holding them back is the big chains want consistent supply over a longer period of time.
“We are still quite a niche market and industry, so being able to supply a consistent volume, which is what they look for, could be difficult.
“And the price point as well ... it is a high value crop purely because of the amount of work it takes to produce them.”
The orchard is also labour intensive.
“We still hand prune, hand pick and pack,” he said.
“It is a very delicate piece of fruit.
“To get a premium piece of fruit to market we pick and put it into a foam lined tray. “We even have foam lined picking buckets and we put a piece of foam between each layer on each level.
“When it comes back into the shed you cool it down straight away and then pack it into either foam socks or tissue paper and bubble wrap on the top and bottom.”
These steps are what made it difficult to market the fruit in large volumes.
“We could easily pick them off the tree and throw them into a big wheelie bin then roll them across the table, but their skin bruises and gets black marks very easily so when you display them at market a few days later, no one wants to buy them,” he said.
“Inside, they are still perfect but it’s just the external skin that puts people off.
“You would not believe how much just the slightest imperfections costs this industry.
“You could slice the fruit in half and turn it upside down so people can’t see the skin and you wouldn’t be able to pick the difference.”
The Jacksons’ farm is 40 hectares and on that they also grow macadamia trees.One third of the property is dedicated to custard apples and two thirds to macadamias.
“Custard apple trees are not pollinated by bees because the reproductive parts are too small,” Mr Jackson said.
“There is a variety that self-pollinate and one that we have to pollinate by hand.
“We pollinate male of an afternoon and female of a morning.
“It’s something you try to explain when people ask about the price point they are at.”
The Jacksons harvest their macadamias and custard apples at the same time.
“We start harvesting the custards normally towards the end of February, and in our area this goes on until mid-June,” he said.
“We walk every row and check every tree from the end of February until the middle of May, and we do this every week because if fruit falls to the ground, it’s no good.
“If we leave it on the tree and it over matures, its softer to touch and we can’t pack it because by the time it gets to Sydney or Melbourne it would just be slop and have sent all the other fruit ripe too.”
He said his Fitbit watch has recorded up to 27,000 steps a day spent roaming the custard apple orchard.
“I do between 20,000 and 27,000 steps a day but still struggle to keep the weight off,” he laughed.
“We have a bet in our family that whoever has done the least amount of steps has to put the dishes away.”
Daniel, who is President of Custard Apples Australia, said the Australian variety of custard apple is called squamosa.
“It is very highly sought after in export markets and high end export markets.”
The Jacksons export their custard apples to Malaysia, Singapore and Canada.
“We pick the fruit [when it is] firm so that it changes from a dark green to a lighter green with a creamy cut in between the carpels.
“When it’s soft to touch and you could stick your thumb through it, that’s when you know it’s ready to eat.
“Then you tear it apart and scoop it out.”