Spain is expecting to increase mango production by one-third this season, amid plans to plant new varieties to extend the season on the back-end.

With the new campaign soon arriving, José Linares, president of the Spanish Tropical Fruit Association, spoke with Fresh Fruit Portal about expectations for the coming months.

"They expect this year to increase production by about 10,000 MT, going from 22,000MT last season to 30,000MT this year," Linares explained.

The increase is mainly due to the trees’ maturity, with production capacity anticipated to continue to grow in the future.

Linares said future expectations are positive, highlighting that the proximity of the European market allows the fruit to arrive in good quality.

Although Spain has competition from Africa and Latin America in the market, Linares said it has no problems selling its product since "Europe consumes almost 10 times local production."

He said they have no plans yet to expand outside of the continent, but added that once they reach 40,000MT or 50,000MT they plan to consider other markets.

The mango season in Spain runs from August to November, and it is the Osteen and Keitt varieties, harvested in September, that make up the bulk of the production. The Irwin variety starts the campaign in mid-August with greenhouse harvested fruits.

In the future, the association plans to evaluate other varieties that can be added to the Spanish orchards in order to extend the season.

This would be to either "start before or, most importantly, finish later. So instead of finishing at the beginning of November, we will be able to prolong the harvest until the end of November or mid-December," he said.