Peruvian mango producers fear unusually hot weather will affect flowering for next year's mango harvests, website Eltiempo.pe reported.

Peruvian Association of Mango Producers and Exporters (APEM) manager Juan Carlos Rivera Ortega, explained the fruit needed cold weather conditions to develop.

"If the winter is too hot it will affect mango production again. The mango tree needs certain chill hours to produce flowering. Let's hope the climate changes," he was quoted as saying.

He said the problem with Peru's mango industry was there were too many small farms where mango planting was concentrated into 1.7 hectares lots, making it difficult to take a co-ordianted approach over weather problems.

Rivera added the country's small farmers didn't have access to the right chemicals nor the technical experts to administer treatments.

He said  Ecuadorian growers were less at the mercy of the weather because mangoes were grown on larger 80 hectare farms making it possible to co-ordinate action to combat difficult conditions.

Peru's production last season, 2011-12, showed a 30% year-on-year decrease of 71,000 metric tonnes (MT) due to wet weather.

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