A new, large-scale avocado project has been launched by Valle del Guadiana in the Spanish municipalities of Ayamonte and Villablanca. "We have a total of 430 hectares between our three farms: La Torre, La Janera and La Chacoca. Of these, 330 have already been planted with Hass avocados, and the idea is to finish planting the rest this year," said José María Marín.
"The Valle del Guadiana project was born solely with avocados in mind," he said. "In addition to the plantation, we have a nursery for the production of plants, with which we have been replanting and expanding. We are developing our own know-how in the crop's cultivation."
"The 90 hectares planted in the first phase are already 27 months old and this year we have had the first harvest, which has exceeded our initial expectations, so we have great hopes for when the rest of the trees come into production," said José María. "Also, the production profile of the new avocado plantations, with their new planting frames and rootstocks, improves on the general historical average in Spain, and we have very good prospects, given the technology we are using for their cultivation."
"In our plantation we have opted, for the most part, for monoculture without the use of pollinators, using beehives to facilitate natural pollination by bees, as well as artificial pollination. There are areas of the world where avocado production works without pollinators and we are testing to find out if they are as necessary as people think. 8% of the area that is normally left for pollinators has thus been gained for Hass avocado trees."
"We will not stay here. We want to keep growing."
The Guadiana Valley project was launched in 2018 in an ecologically very rich environment, connected to one of the Andalusian basins least affected by drought (that of the Tinto Odiel Piedras); an area with a rich past. The area located on the banks of the Guadiana River has been populated since prehistoric times, as evidenced by the megalithic remains found in the farms. "The value of sustainability has been shown through archaeology. We ourselves have paid for archaeological research, and a general research project is being carried out within our farm in partnership with the administrations, the University of Huelva and the University of Alcalá. We are working to ensure the area can be visited in the future."
"Innovation is another important aspect for us. We are working on new techniques and strategies, not only for avocado crop management, but also to diversify our product portfolio. We currently have four products in the last phase of testing."
"But we will not stop here," says José María. "We want to continue scaling up; not only in Huelva. We are not ruling out growing in new areas with the right environmental conditions and water resources to allow the plantations to expand," says the manager of Valle del Guadiana.
For more information:
Valle del Guadiana
Tel.: +34 917 991 555
[email protected]
https://valledelguadiana.com/