Frosts ravaging Europe in April have decimated Greek production and hit key French and Italian production basins although Spain has largely been spared, producers from across the continent revealed at the Europech' congress in Perpignan on Wednesday.

Frosts were particularly devastating as they were combined with high winds causing temperatures to fall as low as -8°C in some areas.

Peaches are expected to represent 1.2mt and nectarines 1.04mt. The Europe-wide apricot harvest is likely to reach just 370,000t compared to 523,000t in 2002 a 30 per cent decline to levels not seen since 1995 and 1998.

Country by country, the 2003 peach crop will be down in Greece and Italy and to a lesser extent in France. Spain's potential production is calculated to be roughly in line with last year and apricots are declining in importance for producers.

In Greece, production has been all but wiped out: forecasts are for an 80 per cent reduction in peaches and a 90 per cent reduction in nectarines.

In France, damage has been most felt in the Rhône Valley. Other leading areas - the Crau plain, Gard and Roussillon - have been more fortunate, nevertheless looking at the country as a whole, production has not fallen so low since 1998. Peach and nectarine crops are forecast to decline 22 per cent on 2002 to 354,000t and apricots to fall by 40 per cent to just 100,000t.

And Italy has suffered too following a record year in 2002 and in 2003 is forecast to produce 1.27mt of peaches and nectarines, down roughly a third. The situation for apricots is more stark still with the crop likely to be less than half of last season's levels at around 100,000t.

Maturity is also delayed by 15-20 days as mild winter temperatures early on gave way to harsher conditions between January and March. Early varieties are therefore likely to be two to three weeks behind a normal harvesting schedule and clashes and overlaps between varieties and production areas are also forecast in the first few weeks of the season. Producers in Spain and France in particular are fearful of a clash on the marketplace.

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