Franco Lillo from the technical office of Assofruit Italia PO says that "early peaches blossomed 15 days early but there are empty branches and buds have dropped, so we will probably have at least 30-40% less produce."
"As regards early apricots like Ninfa and Tyrinthos, blossoming is good although pollination is not uniform. The blossoming of COT red apricots (Mogador, Wonder Cot, Lilly Cot etc) was early and abundant, though we cannot say whether setting will be good or not. Talking about late apricots, Vitillo are doing good just like Portici, whereas Orange Rubis and Kyoto blossoms are scarce and Cafona will probably produce close to nothing."
Things seem to be going well for nectarines. "Maybe only Big Tops will produce 10-15% less." Bad weather though, could worsen the situation pretty quickly.
During the winter period, the majority of the meteorological stations of the Metapontino area (click here for more info) recorded over 500 hours of cold weather (click here to see the ALSIA chart).
"Whereas we are only talking about early blossoming for nectarines, the same cannot be said for apricots, as only part of the flowers are early," explains Vito Vitelli from the COVIL consortium.
"There are differences both on the branches of a single tree (photo above) and on plants of the same variety (photo below). In addition, many flowers are weak and small. The humidity caused by frequent rainfall is also making things worse."
"Apricot blossoming is proceeding slowly after starting early. Early blossoming varieties have already finished this phase and petals dropped (e.g. open field Ninfa). Medium blossoming ones are instead fully blossoming in the lower part whereas the top is still asleep. Operators are worried about this, as things are even worse for late varieties. It was all caused by warm weather in February and the fact that things went back to normal in early March. The fact that bees were not as active with temperatures between 15 and 10°C has also to be taken into consideration," says Maurizio Simone from Doctor Farmer Srl.
"One last worrying aspect is flower drop. Some think it might be due to birds, whereas others fear it is caused by peach twig borers and/or weevil. In addition, some varieties are also suffering because it is not cold enough. It is still to early though to estimate how setting will be and we also have to be careful about Monilinia."
Citrus fruit
As regards citrus fruit, Leonardo Cimino from F.lli Cimino said that "despite the fact that spring officially begins on 21st March, temperatures are above average, so citrus plants are blossoming early. If the weather holds like this until 15th April everything will go well, if it does not, then it will be a real disaster."
