NFO reports that last weekend nights were uncommonly cold. Temperatures remained just above freezing in most places in the Netherlands, although some places also saw a little frost. Some irrigation occurred, but most growers didn’t have to get out of bed. The cold weather caused quite a few more worries for fruit growers in Italy and Poland.
In Poland, temperatures as low as -3 ºC were measured in the night of Saturday 4 to Sunday 5 May. In April, the Polish growers were also faced with severe night frosts of -7 ºC locally. TVN Meteo had forecast temperatures as low as -5 ºC for this week as well. The low temperatures cause the growers to be quite worried. The night frost is expected to have consequences for the coming harvest.
Snow fell in Italy on Sunday. In the Trentino region in South Tyrol, snow even fell in the lower regions at just 500 metres. That’s quite exceptional for the time of year. However, it appears as if the snowfall hasn’t caused a lot of damages to the trees. italiafruit.net reported that ‘despite the uncommon nature of the snowfall, no crop damages occurred for the apple trees still in bloom.’ Growers had to open up their hail nets to prevent damages.
Source: NFO