Growers in Murcia should take advantage of an early market window for cherries, a research team in the Spanish region has concluded.

The project, which is backed by the agriculture office of the Murcia regional government working with Murcia food and farm research body Imida and growers, has found that cherry production could prove commercially successful in the earliest growing areas in the region.

There are already 100ha of cherry production in Murcia in the north-east and high plateau areas but researchers have found that more product could come on stream between mid May and early July with large fruit and good flavours giving growers a distinct market advantage at a time when there is little availability from other European sources.

Pricing for the crop this season has been high given that volumes were down by about 25 per cent on last season’s high volume crop in the area due to late frosts. Brooks proved to be the best performing variety and the high prices benefited more than 50 per cent of the harvested crop, the research team found.

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