A dry winter followed by a spate of recent downpours has brought mixed results to produce growers.

"I mean hail in December, what the hell is that?" Mr Eastlake said.

He said the rain had caused some splitting of his cherries out near Young, and estimated he would have to bin the majority of his 400-tonne crop this year.

"A fair bit of fruit didn't make the size I wanted due to the dry conditions," he said.

"If I got 200 [tonnes], I'd be dancing."

Rain at the wrong time of the season often means cherries can split, making them unusable - though the dry winter meant the fruit was too small to crack substantially during the recent rain.

Those dry conditions meant some of the region's cherry growers were looking at giving up on cherries, Mr Eastlake said.

The majority of NSW is in a state of drought, causing the state government to announce $1 billion worth of relief subsidies in August.

Mr Eastlake said the wild swings in weather conditions had been "utter insanity" and he'd been forced to leave some of his unsellable produce on the trees.

He said Australia had the highest standards in the world when it came to fruit, which could be a blessing and a curse - Australians were rewarded with top produce but farmers faced extra pressure to deliver decent sized fruit.

But he said recently relaxed trade laws with China would allow locals to start exporting their produce at a premium.

"The future is bright," he said.

Mr Eastlake said some growers had been able to get fruit away early and had made a killing exporting them.

Nearby, cherry grower Graham Sutherland said the rain had come mostly too late.

"I think the biggest trouble we've had this year is lack of size through lack of rainfall," Mr Sutherland said.

"It doesn't matter how much you irrigate with the extreme weather conditions."

Mr Sutherland said the smaller the fruit, the less growers could sell it for.

He said he would have liked to have seen more growers exporting overseas.

"We've got oversupply on the domestic market and then the prices crash and no one really wants to buy small fruit if it doesn't look attractive," he said.

"I don't want to talk too much doom and gloom but I don't know where the future lies."

Further north, in the Orange region, cherry grower Fiona Hall had to bin about 40 per cent of her 1300-tonne crop due to weather damage.

When Canberra saw a month's worth of rain in a day, Ms Hall's farm was lashed by heavy downpours and hail.

"There's plenty of good fruit there that we're still sorting through," Ms Hall said.

But she said it would have to go to market for at least $10 per kilo to make it worthwhile. She said other farmers who also grew apples had also taken a hit from the weather.

She called on Australians to keep buying fruit well after Christmas to help struggling farmers.

In the capital's north, the operators of the Mount Majura Vineyard loved the recent downpours, including one late last week where Canberra received December's average rainfall in just 48 hours.

The vineyard's Fergus McGhie said things were looking healthy and green, with grapes left undamaged by the recent rain.

"A lot of it happened post flowering, that's also a good thing," he said.

Mr McGhie said the dry winter saw the vineyard pumping extra water, which added to overheads, but this was necessary to keep his produce as natural as possible.

"The [Canberra] district is a premium district because of the dry conditions," he said.

Dry weather kept diseases associated with wetter conditions at bay, while Canberra's hot days and cool nights were excellent conditions for the vineyard.

Closer to the capital's border, Murrumbateman region olive grower Peter O'Cleary said he had only lost 10 of his nearly 2000 trees in the rain.

"We got one storm during flowering, all the others had already flowered, so the rain actually helped," Mr O'Cleary said.

He said the drier winter had meant more irrigating, which resulted in a higher electricity bill - but that came with the territory.

"It's not for the faint-hearted," he said.