Harvest of North Queensland's only gold kiwifruit crop has wrapped up for another year at the orchard of a fourth-generation farming family.
The 2.5 hectare orchard is part of the Masasso family's Rocky Creek Orchards at Tolga, and was established in 2014 as part of the business's continued diversification.
Rocky Creek Orchards managing director Joe Masasso said the gold kiwifruit was more heat tolerant and with proper care and attention, grew well on the Atherton Tablelands.
Similar to grapes, the kiwifruit needs to be manipulated to produce a crop out of season, which Rocky Creek Orchards has done successfully for many years.
"The crop goes to market agents in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and they supply the majors," Mr Masasso said.
"We are the only producers in the world that produce gold kiwifruit fresh at this time of the year."
The crop is grown under a trellis system.
"Kiwifruit is grown exactly like passionfruit - all hand trained, hand pruned and hand picked," Mr Masasso said.
"The work is at the opposite time of the year to our avocados so it helps us keep our permanent staff employed."
Although not classed as an industry, Mr Masasso said there was potential for a kiwifruit industry to be established in Australia, if market forces aligned.
The kiwifruit is another bow in the family's multi-faceted agricultural business.
Joe and wife Betty are well known crop farmers in the Golden Triangle district on the Atherton Tablelands, named so for its rich, highly productive volcanic soil.
Mr Masasso joined his father and farming founder Lorenzo as a 15-year-old school leaver some 66 years ago, and has continued to follow his father's belief that diversity in farming would always provide for his family.
After 45 years growing peanuts, a severe root disease decimated the family's peanut crops and forced Mr Masasso to search for alternatives.
In 1981, he was introduced to mangoes - up to then only grown in the warmer, drier climates of the northern Tablelands.
Soon after came avocados which are now the dominant crop on the 182-ha home farm.
Lychees had a false start in the 1980s, at a time when little was known about netting and the expense thereof.
In 2018, the family re-entered the lychee industry with new varieties and has harvested commercially in the years since.
Passionfruit followed - largely to utilise unused trellises leftover when kiwifruit vines were removed - with the Pandora variety continuing the family's successful journey in horticulture.
Widespread orchard destruction following Tropical Cyclone Yasi in 2006 compelled the family to find alternative farming areas for crop protection.
"We lost over 1000 trees during Yasi," Mr Masasso recalled. "The fruit was smashed and it took us two years to get back on top again."
Expansion took them to Mutchilba and Dimbulah where they grow mangoes, avocados and lychees.
While crop diversification has been at the heart of the family's business growth, an opportunity to establish a state-of-the-art, custom-built packing shed in 1984, provided the family with further diversification.
Rocky Creek Orchards packs avocados for a number of growers in the region- with a year-round avocado supply to two major supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, thanks to a partnership with some Western Australian growers.
With the third generation heavily involved - daughter Lorraine manages the packhouse and son Lawrence manages the northern Tableland operations - and the fourth generation helping in between university studies and work commitments, the future of Rocky Creek Orchards is in safe hands.
