Poland: Preparations for the blueberry season begin

05/04/2016

Preparations are being made for this year's blueberry season in Poland. Producers are finishing with pruning and flowering will begin in early May. The season usually starts at the beginning of July, a week up or down.

According to the owner of Polish blueberry supplier Milbor, Piotr Milewski: «Last year was quite difficult due to the weather conditions. Many plantations suffered damage from heat and drought, so this season's yield will likely be affected. However, new plantings will offset production losses, meaning production should be around the same level as last year, if not better.".

The heat of last year will have an impact on the growth of shrubs. Milewski says that not only will it be a quality problem, but that new outbreaks will not have the level they should have. However, as long as there are no surprises this year in terms of weather conditions, believe things should have returned to normal for 2017.

Polish blueberry season

The demand for blueberries is still rising across Europe, so there has been no negative price effect in recent years, because of the increase in the area of blueberries in Poland, although demand is offsetting this growth. Milbor customers have increased the quantities of their orders year after year, so the company continues to see growth. There is a good demand in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany, which are the main markets of the company. Scandinavia also has good demand and Milewski says that even markets that traditionally have low consumption of blueberries, such as France, show signs of growth and have great potential.

Search for new late varieties

Milbor is looking for new late blueberry varieties from the University of Michigan and the Fall Creek Nursery nursery, but they still have to test them to see if they also work in the Polish climate.

«The main idea of looking for new varieties is to cover the end of August, September or even the beginning of October. Poland can have very harsh winters, so we need to check if there are any varieties that can survive our climate. "It could take a few years, but once we find the right late variety, it will be a turning point."says Milewski.

«Polish blueberries are later in the season than their northern hemisphere competitors such as Germany and the Netherlands, so, in terms of early varieties, we can enter those markets without quality problems. There is a gap in late varieties, so we are looking for varieties for September and October. We started to see competition from Peru and Chile (which arrives a little later) during the beginning of September, but the quality of their early varieties, especially in terms of flavor, is not ideal, since they want to be the first and harvest the blueberries when they are not yet ripe. "They tend to be acidic, so I think we can beat the competition.".

There is a lot of talk about Romania's recent competition, but Milewski denies that she has noticed any impact. Many companies in Western Europe have been investing there, but believe that they may involve some competition for the early varieties that are ready in July and, sometimes, at the end of June, but not for the late varieties.

Polish demand evolves

«Blueberry prices fell a lot a couple of years ago, which gave a boost to consumption. Those who normally couldn't afford them started trying them and liked them. We see that there is more national consumption and that is good news for us. Blueberries are not traditional fruits in Poland; Production started just 20 years ago, so it takes some time for consumers to get to know the product, try it and start enjoying it.", concludes Milewski.

Source: freshplaza.es