The skin of a blood orange can vary in colour from that of a navel orange to a bright crimson. The colour deepens as the fruit matures, and sunlight will bleach the colour from the skin of a mature blood orange. This happens especially in spring as picking time approaches and the trees are laden with fruit.
The price fetched by a blood orange is influenced by the colour of its flesh. At the farmer’s orchard, a good quality blood orange with a rich, dark flesh will sell for twice that of another strain of orange, so getting the colour right is a priority for growers.
The Barilas grow a Sicilian strain, which has a distinct raspberry flavour, and when very ripe the flesh is almost black. The colour of the flesh begins to develop with a frost: cold weather brings out the colour in the blood orange and is welcomed – in moderation. Joe has noticed changes in the weather patterns around his property since he was a child. ‘We used to have two or three frosts and then a good rain – ideal for growing blood oranges. Now we have more frosts,’ he says. Too many frosts can be detrimental to the development of the fruit.
Picking begins in August and continues until October. From the two hectares devoted to blood oranges, the Barilas harvest between 25 and 30 tons of fruit each year. They hire four or five pickers every season, depending on ability. The preferred pickers are the nomads, who follow the harvesting seasons around Australia. Pickers are paid by the bin-load, each bin holding roughly half a ton.
Picking needs to be carried out under specific conditions. The day needs to have warmed, and dried any dew on the skins of the citrus. If picked when wet, the blood orange will show up handprints a few days later. The marks are caused by naturally occurring oils on the pickers’ skin, and because of this curiosity picking starts as late as 11 a.m. on especially cold days.
The fruit is washed and packed on-site, then shipped, mostly to restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne, some to Brisbane. A small percentageis shipped abroad: America is the primary overseas customer for the Barilas’ blood oranges, but it is still a small market.
The life cycle of the blood orange begins again in the spring. Buds bloom and then blossom. These blossoms will blow away in the spring breeze to reveal a young blood orange fruit.