It will be years before the Australian mango industry can take advantage of the free trade agreement with Japan.

The deal was struck in April, but will be signed off today in Canberra by both the Japanese and Australian Prime Ministers, Shinzo Abe and Tony Abbott.

Japan is Australia's second largest trading partner overall, but very few mangoes have found their way to Japan's shores, in the last few years.

It won't be until after 2018 that that turns around, according to Marie Piccone, managing director of Manbulloo. Listen Duration: 3 minutes 37 seconds 3 m 37 s Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Mango grower, Marie Piccone on export restrictions ( Suzannah Baker ) Download 1.7 MB

The company has farms in the Northern Territory and north Queensland and grows up to 4.5 million tonnes of mangoes annually.

She says the major stumbling block for access into Japan, is a restriction on a fungicide chemical called fludioxonil, used to treat a post harvest disease; ripe fruit rot.

"It's registered for the use on mangoes and accepted into many countries around the world, but Japan hasn't set a maximum residue level for mangoes yet."

Ms Piccone says that means no mangoes that have undergone that treatment can be sent to Japan.

"Japanese consumers love Australian mangoes and they're prepared to pay for them, but the free trade agreement doesn't have a lot of meaning in the short term.

"It will be very useful to the Australian mango industry, once we can use this post harvest treatment," she said.

Growers have appealed to the Australian Mango Industry Association (AMIA) and relevant Australian and Japanese authorities to fast track a solution.

The company which developed the chemical, Syngenta, has indicated it will take at least until 2018, before a maximum residue level will be agreed upon and set for Japan.

"We'd like to see that accelerated and at a recent export workshop held by AMIA, that was discussed and it was suggested pushing that timeline closer, should be a priority," Ms Piccone said.