Producers of the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) Poma de Girona expect the harvest to reach 88,570 tons this year, a similar figure to that of last year (88,340). This year's production will be the third highest in the last decade, partly due to the expansion of the acreage.
"The measures implemented to deal with the country's drought situation, which has taken a toll on different production areas, and the high temperatures have marked this year's campaign, but we will have high quality apples of good sizes," said Jaume Armengol, president of Poma de Girona.
Poma de Girona, which already has over 2,000 productive hectares, has recently started the harvest and will continue until November. To celebrate the campaign's start, an event was organized by IRTA-Mas Badia, in the municipality of Canet de la Cortada, in Girona. This year's guest at the event was the famous chef Pep Nogué, who presented an apple ice cream as a fun and refreshing way of consuming this fruit.
Poma de Girona is made up of 78 producer families from the companies Girona Fruits, Giropoma Costa Brava, and Fructícola Empordà.
Joan Bonany, director of IRTA-Mas Badia, said that "despite the climatic and hydrological drought conditions, we will again have a significant production. Most of the production areas are in exceptional or emergency situations. Temperatures have also been high, with positive anomalies compared to the climatic average, but we have not reached the extreme of 2022. We are seeing some coloring difficulties in the bicolor varieties, especially in the older ones, but the cool nights of the last few days are helping ensure a good development of the color of the Gala. The high temperatures have also facilitated the control of fungal diseases."
Chef Pep Nogué symbolically harvests the first apple.
The production from Poma de Girona still plays a very relevant role for Catalonia and Spain. It represents 33% of Catalonia's production and almost 20% of Spain's (1 out of every 5 apples produced in Spain are from Girona).
"We are facing the start of the harvest with optimism, but also concerned about how the situation may develop in the future," said Jaume Armengol. "In order to cope with the measures implemented to tackle drought, Girona producers have been adopting drip irrigation, which is more efficient, and started using the Giroreg irrigation scheduling systems based on sensors."
"Moreover, the thinning of the apple trees has been carried out in a more intense and accurate way than usual in order to be prepared for the effects of drought. This has left the tree with less fruit, but of a better size and higher quality," he said.
Poma de Girona grows mostly four varieties. The Golden will once again be the most common one (31,740 tons), followed by the Gala (19,240 tons), the Granny Smith (14,390 tons) and the red varieties (6,030 tons). Other varieties, such as the Fuji (7,820 tons) and Cripps Pink (6,830 tons) are also grown in Girona.
For more information:
IGP Poma de Girona
Tel.: +34 972 78 08 16
[email protected]
https://pomadegirona.cat
