The cooperative society Costa de Huelva (Coophuelva) of Lucena del Puerto has closed the 2020/2021 berry campaign with a production of nearly 18,000 tons. According to the managing director of the cooperative, Bartolome Fernandez, the production of blueberries, the most cultivated berry by its members, totaled 6,700 tons. It was followed by strawberries with 6,650 tons, raspberries with 4,310 tons, and blackberries with 22 tons.
The cooperative had 500 hectares devoted to blueberries and, according to Fernandez, this berry accounted for almost 40% of Coophuelva's turnover. In fact, the blueberry is an important bet for the cooperative, so much so that they will test out the new Onubafruit varieties during the next season. "We expect that, with these new varieties, we'll be able to prolong our current production period and increase the volume we market within two years," Fernandez stated.
Incidence of storm Filomena
Regarding strawberries, Fernandez stated: "At the beginning of the season we had some problems in the plantations caused by storm Filomena. There were times when we had to allocate almost 50% of the strawberry that entered the cooperative for the industry because the fruit did not have adequate quality due to botrytis and other diseases caused by humidity. However, the campaign subsequently recovered both in terms of fruit quality and prices, which, despite not being exceptional, were acceptable." However, the volume of strawberries harvested during the campaign was 10 to 15% lower than we expected.
Coophuelva has managed some 175 hectares of strawberries during this last campaign and the forecast for the next season is that this area will be cut by 40% as the plantations of blueberries increase.
Meanwhile, the area devoted to raspberries stood at 175 hectares and we don't expect it to change for the next season. Production has exceeded 4,300 tons.
The cooperative manages nearly 3 hectares of blackberries which yielded some 22 tons this campaign.
The hectares of avocado will increase
Finally, Coophuelva harvested about 220 tons of avocado in the 150 hectares of avocados that it has devoted to this production in Gibraleon. "We expect we'll produce 1,600 to 1,800 tons of avocado in 2022, and that the number of hectares will gradually increase," Bartolome Fernandez stated.
Source: agrodiariohuelva.es
