Members of All Lemon, the quality seal for Argentinean export-quality lemons, have significantly raised their quality controls following severe frost damage.
The coldsnap hit northwest Argentina during the last week of July; exposing fruit to temperatures of -2oC to -11oC for three to 12 hours per day, according to a press release from All Lemon.
Despite still being too early to precisely determine the impact on crop volume, All Lemon estimates that the impact will be reflected in reduced shipments from week 31 onwards.
To minimise the risk of damaged fruit being exported, a quality control alert has been raised which will see All Lemon members undertake specific actions to preserve fruit quality.
Those preventative measures include:
• A comprehensive review of the batch fields to be harvested to ensure there are no visible symptoms of frost in the ground and in the most sensitive areas of the plant, such as the shoots, flowers and fresh fruit curds. Harvesting will be postponed on these lots until they more visibly manifest frost damage in the fruit. Special care will also be taken with broken branches that have dried fruit.
• A systematic sampling of fruit entering the packhouse in order to control fruit with frost damage from appearing in the pre-admission screening process for each lot.
All Lemon inspectors must also:
• Raise the number of visits by 50 per cent every week and in every packing line.
• Increase in each visit the number of samples for analysis.
• In addition to inspecting completed boxes, inspectors must start to control the fruit arriving directly from the field (pre-selection).
• Reinforce the advice provided to the 16 member companies so they can implement preventive controls aimed at detecting fruit damaged by the frost.
The lemon industry in the northwest of Argentina has experienced rapidly changing weather conditions during 2013 which have included a mild start to the winter, followed by a very dry autumn with high temperatures and low rainfall, and a long and very hot summer.
All Lemon claims that these “drastic” climatic factors led to a dominance of medium to small fruit sizes and caused the group’s members to boost by 50 per cent their daily quality controls of fruit in the 26 packing lines of the 16 companies who are audited under the scheme.
All Lemon comprises 16 companies: Argenti Lemon, Cauquén, Cecilia Martínez Zuccardi, Citromax, Citrusvil, Expofrut Argentina - Univeg, FGF Trapani, Frutucuman, Juan Sigstad, La Moraleja, La Patria, Latin Lemon, Ledesma, Moño Azul, Pablo Padilla and San Miguel.
