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Hazelnuts: Count the chicken after they are hatched

September 7, 2017 at 9:34 AM , Starry Night Ltd.
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Overall, this year’s output will be higher than that of last season. Yet, at the beginning of harvest, some farmers did hope for more.

SOFIA. At the beginning of harvest, prospects seemed quite encouraging. Weather conditions throughout the country had been favorable, with the exceptions of some parts in the Southeast region where frost fell during May and damaged the crop. However, owners of smaller orchards throughout the country, who are in the midst of collecting the nut, are finding out that their earlier expectations might have been too optimistic.

Hazelnuts: do not count the chicken before they are hatched

For those owners of orchards, who saw their crop damaged because of unexpected frosts in May, the result has been long accepted and defeat from natural conditions declared. However, farmers throughout the general North regions and the Central South enjoyed favorable weather conditions earlier in the year, and as a result, they expected to collect higher outputs. Some of them are already doing so and by the end of harvest – depending on the region, sometime in the middle of October – they will have a multifold collected crops – usually in the Northeast and central North regions of the country. However, farmers, whose orchards are situated in the Central South regions of the country, are already complaining of a weaker than expected harvest.

In Bulgaria, the majority of farms are usually family-owned, starting from a few hectares and enlarging them as time progresses. As a consequence, it will take quite a time before such farms could produce substantial quantities of kernels for larger exports. As a result, quantities supplied every year are small – indeed those of organic kernels – and the local market takes it all. Prices are expected to start high earlier in the season!

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