A Top End mango farmer is headed for the best season since his family started farming in Darwin's rural area 30 years ago.
The Skliros family mainly grows Kensington Pride mangoes, but also produces a couple of green varieties such as Nam Dok Mai and Fallen mangoes.
This year, Skliros Produce was one of the Territory's first producers to start harvesting the mainstream mango variety, Kensington Pride.
Leo Skliros said, to date, he had already sold more trays of mangoes in the first two-thirds of his harvest than the whole of last year's season, with 117,000 trays packed and gone.
"I'd say we have got anywhere between 50,000 and 70,000 trays to go," he said.
"This is by far our biggest year. Last year we did just under 100,000 trays and our biggest year to date has been 128,000 trays.
"We have had some trees that have had massive crops on them," he said.
"We have got 117,000 trays off 11,000 larger trees, so that's more than 10 trays per tree already. That is a big volume per tree. It has been a great crop."
Growers hope to avoid glut and maintain price
Overall the Australian market has received more than 838,000 trays of mangoes from the Darwin and Kununurra regions.
As the NT Mango Industry Association president, Mr Skliros said he was expecting the industry across the board to have a similar season.
"For us it's been fantastic, a nice early start to our season, high volumes early, and nice and spread out, and I think the whole industry is on that track," he said.
"We're hoping there's not going to be too much of a glut at any one time, which should help maintain price, and it's been nice and dry as well so that has helped keep the quality up there."
Wholesale prices for Kensington Pride mangoes were up to $45 a tray in Sydney, and R2E2 mangoes were selling for up to $50 a tray in Melbourne last week.
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