Tasmania

How apples came

William Bligh brought the apple to Tasmania before there was a colony. In August 1788 the Bounty lay at anchor in Adventure Bay, Bruny Island, and on the advice of his botanist, David Nelson, Bligh chose the east side of the bay, where the soil was “of a rich loamy nature”. There, with trees and seeds carried from the Cape of Good Hope, they “planted three fine young apple-trees”, with vines, plantains, fruit stones and apple and pear pips, though he feared the fires that Aboriginal people lit in the dry season¹. These are counted as Australia’s first apple trees^2,3. When Bligh returned with the Providence in February 1792, “of all the plants I planted only one apple tree remained”, alive but small; he planted seven more fruit trees and carved a record of them on a tree⁴.

At York Town, in the north, Colonel Paterson planted apples in 1804; by 1845 more than 30 varieties grew on the west bank of the Tamar, and apple growing in the Huon began in the early 1840s², on land where sheep and wheat would not pay⁵. Apples went to the mainland colonies from the 1840s, and by the mid-1850s to New Zealand and India^2,5. When the mainland raised tariffs in the 1880s, Derwent valley growers such as W. D. Peacock and Louis Shoobridge turned to London and a regular steamer trade began⁵; refrigerated ships in the 1890s made it boom⁶.

Planting peaked in 1915, when Tasmania had an estimated 4.42 million apple trees, and the bearing area in 1922, at about 10,800 hectares². In the 1960s some 4,000 families grew apples⁶; production and exports peaked early in that decade², with about seven million cases of export apples a year⁶. Then the trade fell apart. New Zealand and South Africa, whose apples ripen earlier, reached Europe first, controlled-atmosphere stores let European growers sell their own fruit for longer, and when Britain entered the European Common Market in January 1973 Australian apples lost their preferential access². Under the Tree Pull, or Reconstruction, Scheme of 1972–75 more than half the orchards were pulled out; during the 1970s nearly 700 orchardists left, the orchard area shrank to 3,026 hectares from 7,628, and production halved to 4.2 million boxes^2,3.

How they’re grown

The Huon valley became the heart of Tasmanian apple growing, with fresh soil, regular rain and slopes that drained well and broke the wind. Orchards lined both banks of the river, from Mountain River to Southport, and from 1920 a deep-water wharf at Port Huon loaded export apples without sending them through Hobart².

The Department of Agriculture opened a research station at Grove, in the Huon, in 1951 and planted many apple varieties there for testing; Fuji was among those it brought in⁵. The government stopped running the station in 2010, and a contract to manage the site set out to preserve its collection of apple, pear and quince cultivars, some of the trees over 50 years old⁷. The weather station at Grove, at 65 m, records a mean January maximum of 23.5 °C and 736.2 mm of rain a year⁸. Growers say the cool climate lets apples ripen slowly, so they keep well, and the island is free of fire blight and of the Queensland and Mediterranean fruit flies⁹.

The 2020–21 agricultural census found 1.58 million apple trees, held by about 53 businesses, and a crop of 32,052 tonnes: 14,764 in the South East, which takes in the Huon, the Channel and the Derwent valley, 10,588 in the West and North West around Latrobe and Spreyton, and 6,693 in the Launceston and North East region, with the Tamar¹⁰. By 2022 about 20 families still grew apples, and some were turning to cherries⁶.

What’s picked

Tasmania grew an estimated 30,611 tonnes of apples in 2024–25, worth $69.6 million at the farm gate and about a tenth of Australia’s 295,691 tonnes¹¹. The harvest runs from February to May⁹; in 2025 Gala was among the first apples picked, and picking was expected to go on until May¹². The main varieties now include Gala, Golden Delicious, Cripps Pink, Granny Smith, Scifresh, Scilate and Nicoter^9,12. Most of the crop stays in Australia: Tasmania exported only 127 tonnes of apples in 2023, nearly half of it to China⁹.

In 1936 some 45 varieties were widely grown, and the Sturmer Pippin outyielded the next two, Jonathan and Cleopatra, put together; Cox’s Orange Pippin, Crofton, Democrat, French Crab, Granny Smith and Scarlet Pearmain were also important. In the 1960s and 1970s the old sorts gave way to Red and Golden Delicious². Six Australian varieties were raised in Tasmania: Crofton at Mount Stuart in 1870, Democrat at Glenlusk in 1900, Ranelagh and Tasman’s Pride around 1890, Legana around 1930, and Geeveston Fanny².

On the table

Surplus apples went into cider from the early colony: in 1849 Tasmania had 16 cider makers, eight of them at Swansea and Spring Bay on the east coast². Dried apples became a Huon speciality after black spot spoiled export fruit in the 1890s; a kiln built at Huonville moved to Franklin in 1898, and in 1997 the Franklin works was the only factory in Australia still drying apples in kilns². Canned apples, jam, pectin and juice came from the same surplus³.

In 1927 Hobart greeted the Duke and Duchess of York with a street arch built of apples and lettered “Welcome to Apple Land”⁶. Tasmania’s first Apple Queen, Beverley Lovell of Huonville, was crowned in 1952 before a reported 15,000 people; the harvest pageants faded after the mid-1960s, and in 2014 the Huon Valley Mid-Winter Festival revived the English wassail, singing to the orchard trees and leaving them toast soaked in mulled cider¹³.

Notes

• W. E. Shoobridge of New Norfolk devised the open “inverted umbrella” vase pruning used across the state².
• The codling moth arrived in the 1870s, when apples were Tasmania’s second most important industry³.
• Freight on an 18 kg box of apples to Europe rose from $1.53 in 1961 to $4.74 in 1976².

Where the sources disagree

• When the trade peaked. One Companion entry puts the export peak in the 1920s and 1930s³, the growers’ body says exports expanded then⁹, the heritage study puts the peak in the early 1960s², the other Companion entry has yields highest in the mid-1960s⁵, and a grower told the ABC the heyday ran from the 1940s to the 1960s⁶.
• Who ran the tree pull. The heritage study says the federal government intervened²; the Companion’s fruit entry credits the state government⁵.
• Bligh’s 1792 tree. The heritage study quotes his log: no shoot over “12 or 13 inches”²; Ida Lee’s extract from his journal says “12 inches”⁴.
• The first in Australia. The claim comes from the heritage study and the Companion^2,3; no record of the 1788 Sydney settlement was checked.
• Who raised Democrat. The heritage study reports both Harry Benjafield and the Duffys of Glenlusk².
• Recent production. The census counted 32,052 tonnes in 2020–21¹⁰; the Hort Innovation estimate for that year is 29,015¹¹. In that series Tasmania is the same share of the national total, about 10.35%, every year to 2024–25 (my calculation), so the state figures look apportioned rather than counted.
• The Huon’s share. The Huon grew 83% of the state’s apples in 1999, Spreyton 10% and the Tamar 7%²; in 2020–21 the South East region, which contains the Huon, grew under half¹⁰ (my calculation).
• Units. The 1922 area is converted from the study’s “26 700 acres”²; the boxes (18 kg each, says the study) and the ABC’s cases are left as given.
• Elevation. The 65 m is the Grove weather station’s height⁸; no range of orchard heights was found.