Unseasonable frosts in Spain earlier this year have had a considerable impact on stone-fruit production. Europech' crop forecaster Eric Hostalnou said: "A cold snap brought frost during the third and fourth weeks of January. Different parts of Spain in the vast area between Barcelona and Cadiz registered temperatures down as low as -11°C with the sub-zero conditions lasting for several days."

The effects of the extreme weather conditions were less important in more temperate areas such as Catalonia, Aragon or Extremadura, said Hostalnou, but early and very early stone-fruit varieties suffered a lot.

"According to some Spanish producers unions damage to trees beginning to bloom are significant, but producers in the Seville area, for example, report that they are limited," said Hostalnou. "These varieties were late anyway this year because of low temperatures from the end of December onwards."

Very early varieties were only just beginning to bloom when the late January frost struck and with temperatures as low as -7°C in Seville, damage to the lower branches of trees was considerable.

Trees have not been thinned as producers are hoping to compensate with production from the top of the trees where unopened buds resisted the cold.

"What is certain is there will be problems with broken stones and a significant delay to the start of the season," said Hostalnou.

The harvest in the Seville area is now forecast to start around May 10. "We are likely to see an overlapping in varieties that will condense harvesting, packing and marketing into four weeks instead of six," warned Hostalnou. "We should see low volumes to begin with and then from May 15, a sudden increase that may well overlap with early production from northern Spain, France or Italy."

Topics