Uruguay's apple trees have seen a fall in yields while pear productivity has risen this year, according to a survey conducted by the country's Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fishing (MGAP).

The ministry's Fruit Survey 2012 showed apple yields fell by 30% to hit a 10-year low of 16kg (35.2lbs) per tree, or 50,271 metric tons (MT) in total for the 2011-12 season.

Pear yields hit a three-year high by increasing 22% to 28kg (62.9lbs) per tree, or 18,268MT.

Exports represented around 11% of total apple and pear production, with shipments of 5,631MT and 1,960MT respectively. Around 19% of apple production went to processing, while for pears the figure was much lower at 5%.

Other fruits

Peaches were another major fruit covered in the survey with total production of 21,920MT, but only a minute amount of this was exported or processed.

Smaller amounts of other fruits were registered, covering quinces (5,960MT), plums (3,378MT) and nectarines (2,273MT). Quinces was the only one of these three categories to record exports (15MT), with the majority of its production going to processing (4,346MT).

Planting vs removing

Growers indicated intentions to pull out more trees than they planned to plant and this was the case across the board.

Quince growers appeared the most pessimistic with a ratio of 7:1 in terms of plants to be removed, for peaches the ratio was 4.7:1 and for pears it was 1.75:1.

Apple growers were the least pessimistic with a ratio of 1.16:1.

www.freshfruitportal.com