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~ About Fruits of Whitsunday ~

    Fruits of Whitsunday is a family owned business situated at Longitude 148.5' East and Latitude 20' South, in the tropical climate of North Queensland, on the coast of the beautiful Whitsundays, which is the centre of the Great Barrier Reef. Australia.

Fruits of Whitsunday's vineyards are seated on the base of Mount Dryander; the largest mountain in the Whitsundays at 820 metres high; and on the edge of Mount Dryander National Park, we are quite literally, surrounded by rainforest...

Constant fresh rainforest water runs all year round, down Dryander creek and Gregory river;  the two waters join on our boundaries surrounding the vineyards.

Our Passionfruit are irrigated with environmentally friendly water saving drip irrigation, with tests concluding our irrigation water has a neutral PH of 7 and is very close to pure rain water. 

We also have electronic water moisture probes to ensure we are not under or over watering. You can click on the graph below for a larger, more detailed view.

Incorporated with our electronic moisture probes is an advanced electronic weather station. This weather station constantly monitors the weather and has alarms if one of the set parameters has been reached, to ensure we can take any possible action to safeguard the Passionfruit vineyards.

Quality is a very high priority at Fruits of Whitsunday. First of all, our Panama Passionfruit are picked (cut) off the vine, not the ground, thus there is little chance of pathogen infection. All Passionfruit are then taken to our new packing shed where the Passionfruit are carefully brush washed totally clean, then packed into our own modern designed 16 litre carton with 45 to 70 Passionfruit in each carton. The majority of our Panama Passionfruit are size 40 and 60 in a box, well above the average size of even Panama Passionfruit. Trays of 20 and 23 are also specially processed with our extra large Gourmet range Panama Passionfruit

As well as strict processing and packing of our Panama Passionfruit, Fruits of Whitsunday also undertakes regular leaf analysis to determine vine nutrients health as well as constantly carrying out experiments to compare quality and size of the Panama Passionfruit. The photos below are comparisons in size to other fruit, and to the purple Passionfruit.

This high quality control is now showing results, with growth of our record Panama Passionfruit of 257 grams (9 ounces); 115 millimetres and a 70% pulp content! As the photo proves below.

Fruits of Whitsunday currently has approximately 8000 vines; 30 kilometres of trellis, which makes us the largest panama Passionfruit vineyard in Australia. 

Fruits of Whitsunday is moving strongly towards Sustainable Biological Growing

Pursuing Fruits of Whitsunday's philosophy of constantly striving to produce the very highest quality,  we are now expanding our growing practice towards biological growing. Fruits of Whitsunday has always strived to have a soft approach to the use of chemicals, in that no chemical insecticide is used and fungicides are used sparingly.

Fruits of Whitsunday has now installed a new "Micro brew" pump system, for brewing compost tea, which is then fertigated through the drip irrigation system.  

This is a "problem solving" approach, to utilize the critical link between minerals, microbes and plants. The compost tea's end product contains impressive counts of beneficial fungi, bacteria and protozoa.  The mechanics of the compost tea protection are:

• Competition for space and nutrients - Food and board on the root or leaf surface are both in limited supply. When 50 litres of compost tea, containing up to 5 billion organisms per teaspoon, is applied to those surfaces, there will inevitably be serious competition. If the good organisms win the numbers game, then the enemy pathogens are suppressed.

• Antagonism - In the competitive world of the soil food web, sometimes the only way to survive is to develop exudates, which repel, repulse or antagonise competitors.

• Parasitism - Sometimes the best way to suppress enemy competition is for the organisms to consume them. A host of parasitic fungi are capable of devouring pathogenic fungi.

• Secretion of antibiotic substances - Two of the main antibiotics used in human health are derived by soil bacteria. These creatures maintain their own zone within the web by virtue of their antibiotic exudates.

• Induced resistance -  Systemic Acquired Resistance is a new field of research in natural plant protection. Certain compounds can stimulate the production of Phytoalexins (the plant equivalent to antibodies) to fend off disease. Compost tea stimulates the production of these and other plant protectant substances.

Fruits of Whitsunday utilizes Integrated Pest Management (good bugs eat bad bugs) for our pest control where needed. For example we have released Aphytis Aphytis lingnanenis which lay their eggs in the pest Red scale Aonidiella aurantii.  When the eggs hatch the Aphytis eat the red scale; destroying it.  This process helps to alleviate the pest and reduces the need for chemicals.

Fruits of Whitsunday has completed Freshcare Certification.  Freshcare is a Quality Control program assuring our company meets all food safety requirements. For more information about the stringent assurances Fruits of Whitsunday has to comply to, you can visit the Freshcare website 

Fruits of Whitsunday now has Interstate Certification Assurance (ICA) to supply Panama Passionfruit to the Melbourne Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market, South Australia Markets and Western Australia Markets. Fruits of Whitsunday already has a major wholesaler in each of the major east coast city wholesale markets.

The contact details for each of our agents are listed on our agents page 

Innovation never stops at Fruits of Whitsunday. Currently we are undertaking a breeding program to produce a Gourmet Panama Passionfruit Range. These Panama Passionfruit will be significantly larger, fuller and sweeter; perfect for use in restaurants, displays or for any other purpose when nothing but the highest quality Panama Passionfruit is wanted.

Our constant strive for the greatest Panama Passionfruit possible for you, the consumer, has begun to show winning results multiple times...

Fruits of Whitsunday  A division of Delfwood Pty Ltd  ABN 38 341 723 708  As Trustee for the Kelly Family Trust