FreshPlaza talked to Salvo Magliocco, a producer from the Syracuse area, about the lemon season.
Salvo Magliocco
"Lemons are currently lacking due to various reasons. Everything started with the strong wind in February that wrecked a good part of lemon orchards in the Syracuse area. Many harvested plenty of third-quality fruits and couldn't wait to fertilize in spring to reduce plant stress."
"Despite all the measures taken, there were many mal secco outbreaks, meaning a lot of trees had to be uprooted. In addition, 40 days ago, a hailstorm damaged the younger fruits (that could have been harvested to recover the season) and even the plants."
This in turn has meant that almost all of the fruit was sold as third-category at a ridiculous price considering the quotation trends of the last period.
"Prices touched €0.20/kg for organic lemons, obviously due to the increase of industry products that led to surplus supply and therefore dropping prices. Many businesses closed to restart the new citrus fruit campaign in October, also due to the lack of summer verdellos. Those that are still working are facing a lot of rot problems. Of course businesses unaffected by the bad weather are harvesting verdello lemons at prices above the average."
"We are now waiting for the imported produce, but there seems to be a few problems with that as well - many loads from South Africa have been blocked by the Ministry of Agriculture due to Citrus Black Spot problems, which of course has meant healthy loads have a higher price."
"As for the produce from Argentina, grades are very large due to the floods in South America and prices are above expectations."