Most people have a fruit tree, maybe two, in their yard, or nearby.

Imagine if 750,000 of them were torn up and burnt.

That's the outcome of a decision by Shepparton cannery SPC Ardmona not to renew contracts for fruit supply this year.

Fruit trees that supplied fruit for the cannery now have to be torn out, to prevent disease from rotting fruit and unsprayed orchards spreading to neighbouring orchards. Growers are devastated.

And in the video - a happier time in 1963, courtesy of ABC Archives and Libraries.