The high temperatures of recent weeks have had consequences on the orchards in the Hérault. At the Mas de la Plaine, in Mudaison, the harvests are worrying. The apples ripen too quickly and many of them fall from the trees.
“Look at those apples. With the heat, the flesh has burned inside the fruit, so it’s all soft. It’s unsaleable“, laments Robert Cecchetti. He produces a dozen varieties of apples at Mas de la Plaine, a farm of a hundred hectares of orchards, between Mudaison and Mauguio (Hérault).
Because of these high temperatures, its fruits ripen far too quickly and fall from the trees. Some even burned from the inside because of the sun. This situation is almost unprecedented: it has not had a worse harvest since the heat wave of 2003. “It’s a bit hard since we have worked all the same for a whole year since last January to prune the trees and maintain them. We watered them… there you go. We incurred a lot of costs before the harvest“, continues Robert Cecchetti.
“We must be much more vigilant about the quality of the fruit we are going to pick. Usually, you take an apple, it’s the right color, you pick it up and you’re done. There, you have to take each apple, look at the tail if there is a crack. _In the end, we have 30, even 40% less fruit than normal_.”
Usually, you take an apple, it’s the right color, you pick it up and you’re done. There, you have to take each apple, look at the tail if there is a crack.
Impossible, therefore, to collect everything in such a short time. Robert Cechetti has already started harvesting certain varieties a week earlier this year, such as Gala apples. “When we usually have 3 to 4 weeks to harvest the fruit, we cannot harvest the same amount of fruit in two weeks. It takes twice as many people, twice as much material. We have this technical limit which is difficult to solve since recruiting people is relatively complicated.“
The other varieties, such as Grany, Golden and Pink Lady, are on average smaller than usual. they are therefore lighter and sometimes do not meet sales standards.
Robert Cecchetti does not hide his concern for the next few years. A real Chinese headache to maintain its production. He may be considering cutting back on some early varieties, like Gala apples, even though he knows there is consumer demand.