Prof. WU Houjiu Visiting Citrus Industry in Australia

Visiting FT Technologies, a group of companies specializing in innovative process technology in Australia

From Oct. 31^st to Nov. 9^th, 2010, Prof. WU Houjiu was invited to visit Australia’s citrus industry and attend Citrus Australia National Conference 2010.

From October 31^st to November 3^rd, Citrus Australia National Conference 2010, hosted by Citrus Australia LTD, was held in Hervey Bay, Queensland, a famous place of origin of mandarin citrus in Australia. The participants includes citrus planters, packers, retailers, exporters, researchers, government officials, chemical fertilizer, pesticides and agricultural machinery suppliers as well as delegates of regional associations. The conference served as a great opportunity for planters, technology consulting firms, production materials companies and trade firms to get together and have face-to-face dialogues. Meanwhile, delegates from importing countries, such as America and Japan, gave presentations on citrus marketing. The participants visited orchards and fruit packaging factories, and watched audio-visual display of new prevention and treatment technologies for black spot disease, fruit flies, Huanglongbing and canker.

The delegates visiting orchard and listening to introduction of technologies

After the conference, Prof. WU Houjiu visited juice factory, processing equipment factory, citrus orchard and lemon orchard in Griffith and Melbourne, gaining in-depth understanding of Australia’s citrus industry through communication with local technicians:

1. Australia’s citrus orchards cover an area of 30,000 hectares and produced 480,000 tons of citrus fruits in 2009, among which sweet orange account for 73%, mandarin 19%, lemon 6% and grapefruit 2%. 2.  Australia’s citrus fruits are mainly consumed as fresh, and sold to domestic as well as global markets, such as America, Japan and Southeast Asian countries. In the year 2007/08, the amount of Australia’s exported citrus fruits reached 0.16 billion AUD, accounting for 1%~2% of world’s total citrus fruits trade volume.

3. About 1/3 of Australia’s sweet oranges are used for juice production. The volume of its annual concentrated orange juice production is around 12 thousand tons, which can only meet 25%~30% of domestic demand.

4. The main constraints for Australia’s citrus production are the water scarcity, labor shortage and low yield. However, these problems are gradually solved with vast land resources, the promotion of water-saving irrigation technology and agricultural mechanization as well as the improvement of planting technique. Australia’s citrus industry has great potential for further development.