The tomato volumes for the 2024/25 season are starting to increase significantly in the Spanish province of Almeria. "At the beginning of the season, in August, it was very hot, so poor fruit setting was a common problem. Flowers were falling off and many tomatoes were aborted. As a result, the first tomato productions were a little lower, but the following ones, which developed after it cooled down in September, have gone back to normal," says Armando Berenguel, a tomato producer from Almeria who is currently harvesting in one of his greenhouses, where he has 8 hectares of tomato crops.
"As far as prices are concerned, they are currently quite good in general, but they are starting to fall as the volumes increase. At the beginning of the season, prices are always much higher, especially in the auctions, where cherry tomatoes have reached over 5 euros per kilo and plum tomatoes over 2 euros. Prices in non-auction sales are lower, although those also tend to remain more stable throughout the season, without the peaks typically seen in the auctions."
"In my case, I grow plum tomatoes and this year, like the majority of growers in Almeria, I am growing a new variety with resistance to TBRFV," says Armando. "It has surprised me from the very beginning. The development of both plant and fruit has been really good and there has been no virus pressure from the get-go. Last year, in fact, we had an infestation of white flies carrying the virus in our farms and the plants suffered a great deal of stress that we are not seeing this year."
"We were afraid that the varieties with resistance would lose other features, such as their flavor; but my experience, at least with the variety I am working with, is that the flavor is much better than that of the plum tomato without resistance to TBRFV that I had been growing until now."
The change brought about by the ToBRFV-resistant varieties could be compared to that which resulted from the introduction in Almeria of the Fusarium-resistant RAF tomato. Fusarium had been one of the main concerns of growers in the 1960s and was causing huge losses at the time, and producers in Almeria were forced to thrive with far fewer resources or machinery while also growing in the open ground.
"My brothers and I belong to a family of producers and all three of us are devoted to tomato cultivation," says Armando. "We have been there since the times when irrigation was done with watering cans, the tomatoes were picked with wicker baskets and growers helped each other with the plastic sheets. Nowadays, we are harvesting with tractors, sulphating with mechanized cannons and we are able to regulate the sizes with bio-stimulants and amino acids. We also have new varieties that are allowing us to continue growing tomatoes, despite the emergence of new viruses."
"October has been a very quiet month, and little by little, the volumes will grow, with tomatoes of increasingly larger sizes, in a season in which we won't need to worry about the virus."