BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.2
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Farmers from the Shida Kartli region (Georgia) are already harvesting Gala apples, Trend reports via the EastFruit portal.
The harvest of Gala apples in the Georgian region of Shida Kartli began last week (the last week of August) and will peak in the first half of September.
Gala is one of the earliest apple varieties that became especially popular with Georgian apple growers with the advent of modern apple orchards.
This year, farmers expect a good harvest of apples of this variety - in the range of 20-30 tons per hectare.
To date, the wholesale price of Gala apple from the orchard is 1-1.5 laris/kg ($0.33- $0.49), depending on the quality and size of the fruit, and in the wholesale markets, the price for Gala apples reaches 2.5 laris/kg ($0.81).
Some of the farmers are going to immediately sell the early harvest, as later harvests of other varieties will appear on the market, and farmers do not expect high prices this season.
Others intend to keep the apple until the New Year holidays.
According to the official information of Geostat, in the second quarter of 2020, only 52 refrigerated warehouses functioned throughout Georgia, of which 20 are located in the Shida Kartli region. From May to June, warehouses were filled by 50-60 percent and a total of 89,100 tons of products were stored, but fruits and vegetables accounted for only 5.5 percent of the total volume of products in refrigerators.