The Argentinean lemon season is closing earlier than usual, with a dip in production due to a combination of frost and drought.
“The decline in volumes is tempered by strengthened prices,” said Roberto Sánchez Loria, president of the Tucumán citrus association, ATC. “So we can’t really say that this has been a bad season. We still have to evaluate the full impact of the frosts which will doubtless have served to accentuate the downward tendency on volume. We are now into the final third of the harvest and I don’t think that there will be much fruit left for export.”
Of the 32,000ha planted with lemon trees in the north-western part of Argentina, some 28,000 are dedicated to export to the EU, which takes 87 per cent of all fresh lemon exports from the region with a value totalling
$320 million annually.
The association is now urging its members to exercise caution in the last few weeks of the season, especially as frosts struck the region again in the early hours of last Friday morning with temperatures as low as -2.6°C registered over a period of several hours in some parts.
“In the last two seasons, citrus businesses have agreed between them only to export lemons of exceptionally good quality,” said an ATC spokesperson. “It is to be hoped that exports finish soon to avoid any sendings of late season fruit with problems.”
The cold spell is also hitting blueberry growers, and those with early varieties but without adequate thermal covers or irrigation systems to try to combat the frosts, have already lost a large part of their crop.
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