Fruit production in Serbia is eight percent lower this year
Zoran Keserović, a professor at the Faculty of Agriculture in Novi Sad, estimated that due to the high temperatures, the fruit harvest in Serbia this year will be five to eight percent lower than in 2023. Keserovic said that if Serbia produces about 1,45 million tons of fruit on average, this year the yield will be between 1,22 and 1,25 million tons, reported Nova.rs.
"Last year the fruit harvest was reduced by 270 tons compared to 2022, at the beginning of this year we had expectations that the year would be fruitful, but we had low temperatures in the third decade of April, later great damage from hail and high temperatures, so I expect that the crop will be even smaller compared to last year," Keserovic told Beta.
The high temperatures, as he stated, where there is no anti-hail network, affected the quality of the fruits, especially the plums from Čacak, whose fruit became dehydrated and shriveled.
"In Serbia, there were many problems with the freezing of cherries, especially in Šumadija and Western Serbia, in Vojvodina this year many cherry plantations gave good yields, and those producers who had good quality also had a high price," said Keserović.
He said that the cherry crop was reduced and that the fruit was damaged due to the frost, but this was compensated by the high price, which in some parts of Serbia went up to 120 dinars per kilogram, and on average it was from 80 to 90 dinars.