This Thanksgiving, the Statistical Office will give a first comprehensive overview of the harvest quantities in Baden-Württemberg 2018. After a long, cool spring, the year was characterized mainly by this summer's drought whose effects on fruits and vegetables were different.
Regarding potatoes, tuber growth was slowed down by the dryness leading to significantly lower yields. Even on irrigated areas, the hot sun could not be completely compensated. The average yield of 36.8t/ha is 17% below that of last year, missing the long-term average by 10%. The first, very encouraging forecasts for the apple harvest in 2018 are expected to be revised downwards due to the continuing summer drought. In orchards without irrigation, the fruits remained too small or the trees increasingly dropped their fruit.
Jonagored & Pinova
Nonetheless, apple growers in the country can be satisfied with a harvest of 371,000 tonnes of apples after the frost-related bad crop year of 2017 (112,945 tonnes). About one third of the harvested apples are covered by the three main varieties Elstar (51,400t), Jonagold (44,800t) and Gala (36,300t). The area yields for the most important apple varieties are well above the long-term average from 2012 to 2017. The highest yields are expected to come from Jonagored (40.2t/ha), followed by Pinova (37.6t/ha).
Gala could reach 30,9t/ha and Elstar 26,0t/ha for the smaller-fruited varieties. Even the sweet cherries, with an average yield of 8.3 t/ha, clearly exceeded the long-term average (+ 44%) and achieved a harvest of 22,760 t. Sour cherries achieved a similar result with 8.2t / ha, but are only grown to 277ha.
Asparagus
A total of 10,600 t of asparagus were harvested on an area of over 2,200 hectares of productive land. The calculated average yield of 4.8t/ha was below that of last year (-7%). The expansion of the total asparagus area by 5% to around 2,900 ha is attributable in particular to an increase in young farms to around 700ha (+ 23%).
Open field strawberries
For the strawberries, 21,500 t of these red fruits were harvested outdoors on just under 2,200 hectares of productive land, and another 3,600 t in a protected cultivation on around 230ha , In total, strawberries were harvested on just under 6% less land in 2018 than in the previous year. The average yield of open field cultivation was 10 t/ha (2017: 7.6 t/ha) and 15.7 t/ha in the Folientunnel (2017: 14 ,7 t/ha).
Source: Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Württemberg