The first harvest of watermelons in Turkey has started in the Karatas town of Adana. Adana is responsible for almost all the early harvest watermelons in Turkey and around 20 % of the entire watermelon production.
Adana Food, Agriculture and Livestock Official Muhammet Ali Tekin: “In the last 10 years, Turkey’s annual watermelon production varied between 3.7 to 4.2 million tons annually. Last year this figure was 4 million tons. Adana grew last year around 830,000 tons of this production, which is more than 20 % of the production. We are expecting this figure to be around 880,000 tons.
The productivity of watermelon per 10,000 square feet is above the Turkish averages in Adana at 4 to 6 tons per 10,000 square feet in greenhouses. This figure goes up to 8-10 tons in various areas. In open field production, the average is also around 8 to 10 tons per 10,000 square feet. The harvest season is from May to late August however as the weather was hotter than usual, the harvest started a bit earlier this season around mid to late April. The price per kg of the early harvest watermelons is around 0.42 USD right now.”
Source: Haberturk
