The Polish weather forecasting is looking good, with temperatures actually rising. If any night frosts can be avoided for another two weeks, Poland could have a significantly larger harvest than the last two seasons. To be sure, growers do what they can to protect their orchards from frost damage.
Jan Nowakowski, manager of Polish apple exporter Genesis Fresh states that there will be minimal effects of the night frosts so far, when it comes to the new apple season: “The new apple season has started with frost from -4 up to -7 degrees Celsius at the end of April. This frost had minor impact on apples as the trees aren’t blooming yet. Although it is early, we sprayed water to protect silver and green tips of apples. Not all growers have the water sprinkle system, so we will see a small effect of the early frost later on.”
However, there was still a risk for spring frosts in May. According to Nowakowski, the weather outlook is looking very positive, which could lead to high volumes for the Polish apples this year. “Last two years were impacted heavily by frosts and we lost a substantial amount of apples. If we don’t have severely low temperatures within another two weeks, we will definitely have high volumes of apples in coming in the season. At this moment, the weather forecast shows we are safe in this regard. The forecast is also promising for the start of May with temperature actually improving next week. I am optimistic regarding further temperature changes for spring period.”
Still, growers try to protect their orchards from any frost that could still come up, Nowakowski explains. “Lots of investments are placed for water sprinkle systems to protect against frosts. This is necessary as the clientele has changed and we observe more and more weather anomalies as time goes on. We’ve also started with regular orchard treatments like spray application of fungicides to improve the quality of the fruit later in the season.”
Although Polish growers are already looking at the new season, the ongoing season will not finish before the new harvest arrives. Demand however, has slowed down a bit now that the season is reaching its conclusion: “Genesis Fresh supplies apples all year round. We have good volume of apples this season to continue shipping apples until the new season starts. We always secure enough cold stores with apples to be able to deliver apples to our clients. The demand for apples is rather low at this moment, but this is to be expected in this stage of the season. The spring period is ahead of us, when many of the early fruit and vegetables are appearing on the market and consumers look for fresh alternatives to apples. Nevertheless, the apple is the top fruit which people consume every day!” Nowakowski concludes.
For more information:
Jan Nowakowski
Genesis Fresh
Tel: + 48 22 378 34 05
Email: info@genesisfresh.com