The upcoming Chinese apple crop could find itself between a rock and a hard place this season, with wet weather cutting the volume of quality fruit available for export and stored fruit from the previous season still cluttering the domestic market.
Overall volume is also likely to be down on last year, according to a report from major Chinese marketer Alfa Fruit Packers. Managing director Steven Leung said heavy rain during flowering in May had reduced the Shandong apple crop by as much as 30 per cent, down to around 5.6m tonnes.
A wet summer will mean higher levels of russet and internal problems, cutting the amount of fruit up to export standard, and had pushed the season back, the Alfa Fruit report said.
Picking of earlier varieties for the Chinese domestic market began last week, but the bulk of the harvest will not kick off for another few months.
“We do not expect the first Fuji will be harvest before 15 October,” Mr Leung said. “`This year` weather conditions are not ideal to produce a good Fuji crop. We expect more russet, more rots, more water core, internal injury and shorter storage life for the new Fuji crop.”
Peak Fuji sizing is expected to be around count 80-88 again this year, a result of farmers leaving fruit on the trees longer to get larger sizes, which bring higher returns.
Domestic pricing is expected to be lower this year because of the comparatively large volume of Fuji apples still in storage from the previous season.
“From the early indication of the early varieties such as Red Coral, Gala, Red General, and Golden Delicious, the prices of these early varieties in general is around 15 to 20 per cent lower than last season because there is still a lot of Fuji in storage,” Mr Leung detailed.
“There will be a lot less spectators in the business because the speculators lost a lot of money on last season’s old Fuji apples.”
