Mandarins are now the biggest selling citrus fruit across Australia in winter, but grower Mark Watkins fears his bumper crop is not enough to make his Wisemans Ferry farm pay.
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''It's sad,'' said Mr Watkins, the seventh generation of Watkinses to farm at Wisemans Ferry.
''The branches are breaking. There are just too many. It's one of the biggest seasons I've had.''
His 2000 mandarin trees had three times the usual crop. There's so much fruit that thinning the trees by hand was too slow, and Mr Watkins had to use a chainsaw.
The growing popularity of mandarins domestically and overseas means large scale growers in southern Australia have planted new orchards, and their crop will soon outstrip Queensland's.
With 2.4 million commercial mandarin trees, and more coming, small family farms like the Watkins' and nearby Ford's in Wisemans Ferry are trying new things like pick-your-own mandarins to earn extra income.
They can't compete on price with the large commercial farms.
To support the farm, Mr Watkins goes prawn fishing in summer, but he worries that the industry is too ''cutthroat'' and that there's too much competition for his family farm to survive.
According to Citrus Australia, mandarins outsold navel oranges for the first time last year in big supermarkets such as Coles and that trend is expected to continue.
The organisation's chief executive Judith Damiani would not comment on whether the mandarin boom was related to global warming.
She said it was more to do with industry planting trends, changing eating habits and management practices.
In South Australia and Victoria, many citrus growers were ripping out oranges and planting mandarins.
''Mandarins are a natural snack food,'' she said, adding that they were popular with consumers, particularly the easy to peel and seedless varieties.
''People are moving to more convenient foods, like a mandarin or a banana, which is nice in a lunch box.''
Mr Watkins attributes his juicy mandarins to the addition of potash and advice from an agronomist rather than weather conditions.
His farm has grown mandarins for most of the past 113 years, yet he doesn't remember a crop this good.
''Grandfather planted mandarins in 1901,'' he said.
''When I was a kid, the mandarin trees were 40 feet tall. We used to go out on a horse and a dray, and put a ladder on the back to pick them.''
