“At the moment, we are travelling all over Greece to bring to Markopoulo the necessary male fruits that contain the flies Blastophaga psenes in order to fecundate our female trees. We are in the middle of this process, having concluded our travels to southern Greece and now heading north to collect more of them. Due to the extreme heatwave of last summer, many of the male trees that bear these fruits have been damaged. We don’t know what quantities we will find. The final production volume will also depend on the availability of male fruits, as each one can release flies that will fertilize about 50 females,” Mr. Tolis stresses.
As he adds, “This process should have already been concluded, but due to unfavorable weather conditions, some trees had to sprout again and are not yet ready to welcome the flies.”
Fig orchards in Greece are expanding, and growers are opting for auto-fertile varieties in order to depend as little as possible on the availability of male fruits for fecundation. The Greek entrepreneur says, “The principal variety among the new orchards is Mission. With this variety, you can reduce the fecundation tasks to 10–20% of what other non-auto-fertile varieties require. New plantings have taken place in Pella, Thessaly, and to a lesser extent also in Markopoulo. Greece will bring more volume to the market in the coming years.”
Finally, Mr. Tolis expects a season with more sales opportunities than last year: “We see more space available in Europe. Frost incidents in Turkey seem to have caused significant damage to the production, so we expect more European demand. Our supplies begin in late July and end in late November.”
For more information:
Alexandros Tolis
Litras Fresh
Tel: +30 210 940 0250
Mob: +30 693 435 1690
Email: freshfigs@litrasfresh.com
https://litrasfresh.com/el/home-3/
