If growers get a normal season but cannot tap new export markets she could be right, Trevor Ranford, an executive with the Cherry Growers Association said.

A normal crop would produce more than 12,000 tonnes of cherries but Australians eat less than three-quarters of that, so prices could plunge if the surplus cannot be exported, he said.

Despite drought, two fruits are already cursed by plenty. Last month apple growers had 90,000 tonnes in storage after producing 10 per cent more than the year before. But consumers bought imported table grapes and cherries in winter, leaving more apples in stock, Apple and Pear Australia chief Tony Russell said.

Growers were paid 30 per cent less for apples this year, though shops did not pass on savings, he said. Now growers may have to sell apples for juicing at 15 cents a kilogram, compared with the $2 they can get for shop fruit.

Meanwhile, Kath and Kim's favourite wine has suffered the final indignity. As drinkers switch to sauvignon blanc from New Zealand and vineyards face a glut, about 50,000 tonnes of mostly chardonnay grapes in the Murray Valley have been left to rot or hoed in as compost, Vintage Traders growers' co-operative chief executive Paul Derrico said.

Chairman Phil Englefield warned in the co-operative's annual report many wine companies strived to reduce production by cancelling grower contracts or settling prices that would ruin them. Emerging Asian markets prefer red wines and chardonnay had fallen from fashion, he said.

Not even drought or climate change would make a dent in the glut, four wine groups that back an industry restructure said recently.