Finland: Blueberries, strawberries ripening, but harvest delays expected
Finland's blueberry harvest this year is expected to be of average size -- but there could be a bumper crop of the tarter red lingonberries later in the summer. Meanwhile, the cultivated strawberry season is finally in full swing in the south, a couple of weeks later than usual.
The Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla) predicts that blueberries will be ready to pick in northern Finland around the end of July.
Their ripening has been slowed by the rainy, chilly start to summer, which stunted the blueberry blossoms. Many plants also froze last winter due to the paucity of protective snow. In some areas as many as half of all plants died. In northern Finland, frost and snow that persisted into late June decimated blueberry, cloudberry and lingonberry plants.
Lingonberries are growing nicely in the south, though, while there will be large regional variations in the orange cloudberry crop, Metla predicts.
The main strawberry harvest is beginning this weekend down south, with farms in central Finland expected to begin picking late next week and up north around mid-July. These soft fruit are developing about two weeks behind the normal schedule.
The harvest should be better than last year, but still below the long-term average. The forecast is for around 11 million kilos of strawberries, up from last year’s 10 million but less that the “normal” 13 million kilos.
Source: yle.fi
