China's Guangxi province experienced frosty weather a few weeks ago, relatively late in the season, which has affected the current mandarin harvest. The result is that a big part of this year's crop is being rejected during sorting processes, and exports volumes are down.
Charleston Xiong is in the middle of sorting, waxing, packaging and now repacking Guangxi mandarins. His company supplies markets in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Eastern Asia.
"Crop volumes overall are bigger year on year, which is why more volumes are exported overseas. The current variety we are working with, the Orah variety, known as Wogan in China, is a quality mandarin variety. Export prices are lower because volumes have increased. That is why growers try to sell quickly. Five, six years ago many new trees were planted. More growers started to grow this variety of mandarins as the market had proven strong."
Charleston continues: "This year crop volume is large. Perhaps in future years, there will be less volume on the market. Some growers have cut the trees as returns were too low. Another reason why we will see production decline is because citrus greening disease is going around in Guangxi province. Estimates from researchers have shown that perhaps in five years time, total volumes might be down by 70%. At the moment there's no cure for this problem. Growers can try to bar the disease from the orchard, but once orchards have been affected by it, there is no way to recover from it."
The company also harvests mandarins from Yunnan province, albeit in smaller volumes, around 30% of it's Guangxi crop. Once the harvest ends in Guangxi by the end of the month, harvested and packing will start in Yunnan from then until the middle of May.
"Citrus Greening Disease forecasts a horrible outlook for production. The government is focusing on this issue and trying to support local farmers and trying to protect them. This is, however, very difficult to do. Some exporters fear that volumes can be down by 50% to 70%".
In other, more Northern provinces, the weather is colder, with snow and frost in winter, and citrus greenhouse disease is less of an issue. Here mandarin crop volumes are expected to increase.
"After our citrus season ends in May, we will start with fresh grapes including Red Globes, Crimson and Autumn Crips, from Yunnan, Xinjiang and Sichuan province. This supply runs from June to October, November. After that, we restart citrus in Guangxi Province.
For more information:
Charleston Xiong
Nanchang Lingchuang Fruit Co., Ltd.
Telephone: +86 13870411678
Wechat: charleston1230
Email: [email protected]
