Lychee fruit farmers diversify with desserts as Sunshine Coast crop delivers bad harvest

Committed customers sweat on Gynara Gattera's annual announcement that the gates are open to her Sunshine Coast farm shop.

Lychee lovers like Leonie and Cliff Bartlett drive 40 minutes from Brisbane to buy sweet Kwai Mai Pink variety lychees for $15 a kilogram, or seconds for $10 a kg.

But this year the Gattera family's fresh fruit harvest ended just three days after it began.

"Stocks are way down compared to normal … about 98 per cent for us personally, we just haven't had a great year," Ms Gattera said.

Creative farmers diversify

The family has diversified to ensure Landsborough Lychees' survival in a booming region where farms are being swallowed up by subdivisions.

Despite selling out of fresh lychees, they are using frozen fruit to help keep their farm shop open for longer.

Ms Gattera is now freeze-drying her existing range of creamy dairy and vegan fruit ice creams to sell alongside home-grown fruit and vegetables and coffee.

"It's a new product that I've decided to try and do, and people are loving it," she said.

The poor harvest has meant Ms Gattera's husband, Paul, returned to his off-farm job earlier than planned.

Their bills include $650,000 for new netting to protect nearly 3,000 lychee trees from birds and flying foxes.

Ms Gattera attributed their poor yield, partially, to the trees adapting to the change in light under the netting and their fruiting cycle.

She said heavy rain in 2025 impacted pollination and increased soil acidity.

Small farms adapt

A half an hour's drive north at Ferntree Valley farm in Kulangoor, the Yarrow family is weighing up the costs of a 50 per cent loss in lychee yield, with the benefits of higher prices at wholesale markets.

After the death of his father, Kelvin, in November 2024, Rob Yarrow returned from working in the mines to manage the farm full-time.

He said large amounts of fruit dropped from the trees as they were developing this season.

"It's a bit disappointing because the price is up," Mr Yarrow said.

Mr Yarrow's wife, Annette, and their team have been juicing lychees, lemons, limes, mandarins, and oranges for direct sales to customers at their farm shop and at markets.

"We get so many seconds, it's phenomenal," Ms Yarrow said.

She said other varieties were still ripening, describing the supersized Erdon Lee fruit as a tastebud sensation.

"One [customer] said it tasted like garlic, one said it was onion, one said it was sour, the other guy said sweet and sour," Ms Yarrow said.

Mr Yarrow's mum, June, continues to help process fresh-picked lychees and gets up at 4am on Saturdays to open their stall at the Yandina markets.

"She's a worker, she's over 80, and she still comes up to the farm and does what she can," Mr Yarrow said.

Lychees in Australia

A tropical fruit native to China, lychees were introduced to Far North Queensland in the 1870s by Chinese immigrants.

They are grown between the Atherton Tablelands and northern New South Wales, with harvest starting in the north in October and November, then moving south to finish in February and March.

Australian Lychee Growers Association president Derek Foley said rain and poor pollination had led to underproduction on farms in south-east Queensland this year.

But he said it was too early to predict the impact on the national crop, which historically yields between 2,500 and 3,000 tonnes of fruit.

"The industry's got a great future, I believe, and hopefully there's enough reasonably priced lychees around for every consumer to enjoy," Mr Foley said.