Leading Chinese orange grower Asian Citrus has announced its shift into banana growing to reduce its reliance on a single crop, Agrimoney reports.
The company, which operates plantations comprising 100km² in size and 4.2m orange trees, has announced its decision to replace some of these with banana palms.
It also signified future moves into grapefruit production and the possibility of other fruits as well.
This decision comes after a year during which orange production from Hepu, one of its three plantations, fell by 23 per cent primarily as a result of a citrus cancer outbreak, which causes premature fruit drop.
'To combat this outbreak, we have been trimming trees to reduce the disease's impact and have applied additional fertilisers, pesticides and bactericide,' company chairman Tony Tang said.
The disease outbreak is believed to have been encouraged by wet weather and would not be so virulent during the summer months, but Tang added that 'there are still two months left in the typhoon season so the ultimate effectiveness of our treatment programme is yet to be determined'.
Asian Citrus are prioritising banana palms due to their short maturation period, offering returns more quickly, and the smaller land areas required to grow them.
'Unlike orange trees which require four years before first harvest, new banana trees can be harvested after only 12 months giving us a faster payback period,' said Tang. “Also less land is needed for their cultivation, which provides us with greater flexibility to lease more land should the trial prove successful as anticipated.'
Having planted 220,000 banana trees in August, the company expects their first harvest and sales to the domestic market to occur in September 2013.
Meanwhile, the company has also imported grapefruit seedlings from the US, branching out their citrus portfolio.
