FruitVeb: the plum crop will be poor

(Photo: Pixabay)

The prospects differ from country to country and from variety to variety, so an exact estimate is difficult for the time being, but in the Transdanubian, Pest and Bács-Kiskun county growing districts, which account for the majority of the growing area, a mostly poor harvest is expected, with a better than average harvest only expected in the northeastern region. The decline is partly due to last year’s drought, as the trees were unable to form sufficient and high-quality flower buds. For a long time it seemed that they would not have many flowers, but the heavy autumn rains helped somewhat, so in the spring the flowering was better than expected. The rainy, cool weather was not conducive to pollination, but the weather was good for the quality of the crop, they wrote.

In Hungary, the area under plum cultivation is almost 6,000 hectares, although 10 years ago it was close to 8,000 hectares

The harvest is 60-65 thousand tons per year, in good years it can be almost 80 thousand tons, but in 2020 it was barely 25 thousand tons. The adverse effect of spring frosts has become increasingly significant in recent years, and crop fluctuations make the market unpredictable. As a result, exports have decreased significantly, from 8-12 thousand tons before 2020 to 2-4 thousand tons. The import is not significant, it has been around 1-2 thousand tons in the last 5 years. About half of the domestic harvest is used by the processing industry – they added.

The main season of plums begins in August, and producer prices have so far been at last year’s level or slightly higher

The raw material for jam and brandy costs HUF 90-120 per kilogram, the raw material for the refrigeration and canning industry costs HUF 120-150, and the net producer price of hand-harvested fresh market plums is HUF 200-300 per kilogram – reads the announcement of FruitVeb.

MTI