The price of the melons from Media Agua-San Juan has improved and avoided the generalized inflation and devaluations of the peso against the dollar, as shown by a study made by the Chair of Agribusiness of the Catholic University of Cuyo (UCCuyo).
This variety of Argentine melon has boosted its reference values, not only in terms of competition with other provinces, but also regarding price levels, similar to those of the first weeks of each year-on-year cycle.
This first conclusion was announced at the XIX Annual Melon Seminar, within an investigation on the "Commercial Impact of the Geographical Indication Melon de Media Agua-San Juan."
The study showed that melon marketing was concentrated in the hands of three provinces that supply the Central Market of Buenos Aires: San Juan, Santiago del Estero, and Mendoza. The Geographical Indication has allowed producers to recover market, gathering 50% of the surface.
The Geographical Indication has played a key factor in propping up the price of the melon from San Juan. Its participation in the national market also grew thanks to the seal of quality anchored to its origin.
An event to analyze and improve the melon of San Juan
The XIX Technical Conference on Melon Cultivation was held on September 5. More than 60 people, including producers, technicians and melon lovers, actively participated in it. They addressed different types of fungal and viral diseases, highlighting the necessary preventive work to avoid viruses which are transmitted by agents such as aphids, and discussed a series of tools to reach the market successfully.
Engineer Juan Manuel Raigon, the head of the provincial Seed Institute -Insemi-, and researcher Mauricio Hidalgo made "a call to rescue the old species and varieties of horticultural seeds inviting producers to recover the seeds left behind in a corner of their deposits, as they can be strategic for this germplasm bank."
Engineer Jonathan Perez, who is responsible for the municipality's production, spoke about the effect of irrigation strategies on melon yields and their quality, concluding that "the frequency of irrigation has more productive importance than the irrigation sheet. The number of total fruits was not affected by the different treatments, so its safe to say that yields are not affected by irrigation. However, the fruit's subsequent development, as well as the average weight of the fruit, is."
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Adrián Alonso