According to EastFruit experts from Tajikistan, almond trees have recently blossomed in the Khatlon region because of climate change and abnormally warm weather in the southern regions of the country in October, November and December. A similar anomaly is observed in other regions of southern Tajikistan, bordering Afghanistan.
The weather is warm and bees collect nectar, since almonds are a very good honey plant. However, no one is happy about this, as it is very likely that there will be no almond harvest in the southern regions of Tajikistan in 2022.
“Frosts are almost inevitable in winter – they happen every year. This means that the harvest of almonds on trees that have bloomed will most likely be lost,” says Bakhtiyor Abduvokhidov, international consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), who shared photos of almonds blooming on December 26, 2021.
Recall that in 2020, Tajikistan suffered from two waves of frost and abnormally warm weather in February, which led to the loss of a large part of the harvest of early varieties of cherry, apricot and almond. This led to a sharp increase in dried fruit prices in the region, as stone fruits and almonds were also affected by these frosts in other Central Asian countries. There are enough methods to combat frosts (you can read about them here and here), but it is more difficult to deal with the abnormally early flowering in orchards due to climate change.
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