The weather has turned and so after picking the pears, it is now the turn of the apples and here the volumes are indeed falling on the low side. "I decided some time ago to grub up part of my apple trees, so I already don't have much left. Meanwhile, we have done one pick and at the end of the week we hope to do the second pick, which will be everything for the fresh market. The third picking will be for the processing market, I'm afraid," says Bert Morren from Kortenaken in Flanders.
So in terms of volumes, the grower says, it is not anything to write home about. "At the top we can still see that the trees are full," he explains. "Only lower down, there is a lot less hanging because of the frost we have seen. It did ensure that they had room to grow, so the sizes are generally on the large side. The main size is 85-90, so those are very large calibres anyway. I therefore expect the small apples to be more expensive this year. We may have picked a lot of weight because of the size, but in selling for table fruit, it may be a bit more difficult."
The severe weather that swept over the Sint-Truiden region in early September caused little or no damage at Bert's place. "One evening we had extremely heavy rain with strong gusts of wind and hail. When it broke loose, I also feared there would be a lot of damage. I also heard in certain places that there was a lot of damage, but fortunately for us, we escaped. It was also only about three minutes or so. Overall, though, we are reasonably satisfied with the quality. We only have some apples with frost rings and where the colouring is a bit disappointing."
Good pear prices
The Belgian pear season has been going on for a while and Bert is satisfied with it for now. "Basically everything from size 55 to 75 goes for around 88 euro cents. So we certainly can't complain about that. Even the 50's went for 84 euro cents this week. Still, you can see that here too, the prices of the smaller pears are catching up with the larger sizes. In the beginning, the size 75 almost went to a Euro, but now these are dropping a bit and the smaller ones are actually rising."
"I also do expect these prices to continue for a while. I'm sorting now and expect it to be done in about three weeks, but I hear a lot have already sold. I haven't done that, as I have plenty of cold storage space. It means there is now some space in the market, so we can get nice prices. Which we need in order to meet higher input costs, because the tonnages are also down, of course. Fortunately, that is now the case," Bert concludes.
Photos: ©www.straffestreek.be
For more information:
Bert Morren
Fruit company Morren
Groenstraat 6
3470 Kortenaken, Belgium
Tel: +32 474 76 46 69
[email protected]
www.streekproductenmorren.be