High winds in Valencia earlier this week and periodically throughout January have been knocking oranges from trees as the Spanish citrus season enters its second half.
"There has been more wind again this week, but at this stage it is hard to calculate the extent of damage on the crop," said a spokeswoman for Spanish growers’ association Ava-Asaja. "It is mainly affecting Navel oranges as they are ready to harvest and therefore more prone. Valencia Late is still green on the trees and therefore less likely to fall."
The situation has been aggravated as growers in the Valencia region - in eastern Spain and the largest production area of Spanish citrus - can no longer use chemical input 2,4D which helped in the battle against fruit drop. "As a result, the winds this past month and at the end of December have had even greater effect," the spokeswoman said.
The Navel harvest is in full swing and likely to continue into March. Growers have had a tough season so far with the campaign failing to live up to early expectations. "The first half of the season to December was very disappointing," said the spokeswoman. "Because of the hot summer different varieties ended up coming on stream together and overlapping. This produced a domino effect on the market and prices collapsed."
And then rainfall in October not only delayed harvesting, further aggravating the effect of varieties overlapping, but caused quality problems, damaging the skin of fruit and affecting internal eating quality as well as external appeal.
The second phase promises to be better with prices already recovering to "reasonable levels". And the easy-peel season is winding down with availability having switched this month into Fortune and Ortanique. Farm-gate prices so far are €0.35-0.38 a kilo for Fortune and €0.28-0.30 a kilo for Ortanique.
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