Despite a lower average yield, a late start to the harvest and lower sales, the watermelon season in Sardinia seems to have been positive. Salvatore Lotta (pictured below), commercial director of Agricola Campidanese, a growers' organization under the L'Orto di Eleonora brand, shares his opinion on the past season.
"There are no more watermelons in the fields. We sold everything.
There are only a few boxes of Eleonora and Gavina mini watermelons left at the packing station, but they too will be shipped this week. This marks the end of a season full of worries that started with bad weather during planting. After that, the fruit set was slow, and in June, demand was low because of the rains. July was incredibly warm, which was obviously a great month from a commercial point of view, but in the first week of August orders from all over Europe stopped due to the bad weather. Overall, however, prices remained on average €0.10 per kilo higher than a year ago. And this compensated for the drop in yields.
September sales were also encouraging. "The weather cooperated in
the last two weeks. A lot of watermelons were consumed, considering the time of year, also because prices were gradually decreasing from the summer peak. The season that has just ended has been positive, but evaluations must be made in context. In a normal year, we would never have been able to achieve good sales due to the many setbacks of various kinds, but Spain also lost hundreds of hectares due to unfavorable weather conditions. In short, we played with the odds."
Finally, the director says that the harvest of vegetables such as eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers and Camone tomatoes began a few days ago. The harvest of artichokes will begin in mid-October.
For more information:
Agricola Campidanese
Via Doria, 5
09098 Terralba (OR)
(+39) 0783 022959
[email protected]
lortodieleonora.com