Forecasts for the Italian pear crop have been revised downwards following an extremely dry summer.
According to the promotions committee of the Italian pear trade body, Williams production has been particularly hard hit by the drought conditions and fruit size and volume will be lower than forecast at the Prognosfruit conference last month.
The decline in volume of this major variety in the Italian portfolio means the total harvest is likely to be some six to seven per cent down on that forecast and therefore the pear crop is expected to be about 30 per cent below 2011 levels at 640,000 tonnes.
