EastFruit experts are trying to estimate the production outlook for plums in Moldova. Harvesting of “Stanley” plums will begin at the end of next week in the southern regions. This is the number 1 variety in terms of production volumes in Moldova and is popular for both: fresh consumption and processing. According to farmers, this year’s harvest of Stanley plums will be quite good. Based on their estimates, total plum production in Moldova could reach 85,000 tons, which is 5,000 tons or 6% more than 2022 harvest.
EastFruit experts are trying to estimate the production outlook for plums in Moldova. Harvesting of “Stanley” plums will begin at the end of next week in the southern regions. This is the number 1 variety in terms of production volumes in Moldova and is popular for both: fresh consumption and processing. According to farmers, this year’s harvest of Stanley plums will be quite good. Based on their estimates, total plum production in Moldova could reach 85,000 tons, which is 5,000 tons or 6% more than 2022 harvest.
At the same, last year’s harvest was very low. Thus, 6% increase is rather modest. Moreover, many farmers note that a lot of plum of mid- and late-ripening varieties are on the trees, but because of the summer drought they did not reach their full size yet. There are still chances for improving the situation, but they are not very high. Experts believe that under ideal weather conditions in late summer – early autumn, one can hope for an increase in the 2023 harvest compared to current expectations by 10-15% but even in this case, the plum harvest in Moldova this year will be below the average for five to seven years. During this period, the maximum plum harvest (133 thousand tons) was harvested in 2018, the minimum (65 thousand tons) in 2020 and the average is close to 100 thousand tons.
As it is clear from the price trends, despite a rather modest plum harvest, prices thus far remain relatively low. Lower prices have only been observed in 2018 when the harvest was record high.
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Some experts of the local horticulture industry believe that the forecasted plum harvest in 2023 in the range of 85-90 thousand tons can be regarded as quite good, given the negative trend in the area of plum orchards in Moldova. Until last year, it was estimated at 21-22 thousand hectares but due to the sharp increase in firewood prices in the recent year and problems with fresh plum exports to Russia, many hundreds, and possibly thousands of hectares of old apple and plum orchards were uprooted.
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