Climate change is affecting farming and fruit harvests. This year, cherry trees bloomed several weeks earlier than usual. The warm and sunny weather in March accelerated blooming. As a result, whereas in previous years cherries could still be bought in August, this year late varieties were harvested as early as July. “The season of vegetation was much longer and the temperature was high during the maturation of the fruits. The conditions are comparable to the Italian climate, and the fruits we managed to produce are of excellent quality,” says Krzysztof Czarnecki, vice president of the Polish Union of Fruit Growers. However, some crops were destroyed by frosts in April.
“This year, we had to deal with frosts that decimated plantations. Cherries were frozen in some places up to 100 percent. However, there were places where the fruits were protected – where the frosts were less severe and cherries could somehow be saved. The fact that vegetation began three weeks earlier had both a negative impact, i.e. frosts, and a positive one where the fruits survived,” underlines Krzysztof Czarnecki in a conversation with the Newseria Biznes agency.
After the warmest February in the history of meteorological measurements, this year’s March was also extremely warm. According to IMGW, the average area temperature was 6.7°C, which was 3.6° higher than the average for this month. April also belongs to the months with anomalously warm temperatures, with an average temperature of 10.5°C, which is 1.9° higher than the long-term average. Warm and sunny weather sped up the blooming of plants. At the beginning of April, fruit growers observed such a situation in the crops as it usually happens in mid-May. After the hot days, with temperatures around 30°C, there were frosts down to -6°C in April, which decimated crops in parts of the country. Fruit trees suffered a lot, as even a slight frost lasting longer than an hour can damage flowers.
“Since the vegetation started earlier, we could expect frosts. If we have blooming at the beginning of May and frosty gardeners are in the middle of the month, we have two weeks of frost threats. But if blooming starts at the beginning of April, the threat is completely different, and that’s why losses occur this year,” explains the expert.
Fruit growers in the regions hardest hit by frost did their best to manage. One of them was starting fires in the orchards to raise the temperature at night. In areas where cherries were frozen, the situation with the harvests is very bad. But where the cherry survived, the weather was exceptionally favorable.
The acceleration of the vegetation period by several weeks meant that cherry variety Regina, known as the queen of late maturing cherry varieties, was harvested in mid-July. Currently, even the latest maturing fruits have been harvested. On the other hand, thanks to high temperatures in March and April, the cherries that survived are larger and of better quality.
“Conditions, like on my farm, we can compare to the normal Italian climate. We made the fruits in excellent quality, we had no problem with the size of the cherries, they were on average within 3 cm, so that’s very good, it is already the European standard and there is no problem with their sale,” says the vice president of the Polish Union of Fruit Growers.
The taste of cherries is linked to the place of production. Moderate climate, that is, warm days and cooler nights, favors the development of sugar in the fruit. This makes Polish cherries so tasty.
“You cannot plant cherries anywhere you like, where you have a farm and land. It has to be a specific microclimate, there are locations famous for cherry production, like Bronisławka, there are quite a few cherries there which really do well. A kilometer or two from this location, it doesn’t make sense to plant cherries, they just don’t work,” explains Krzysztof Czarnecki.
The origin of cherries is significant to the extent that connoisseurs of these fruits can recognize the region of origin by taste.
A Kantar Public survey conducted as part of the “Core Team – promotion of fruit and vegetable consumption” project shows that in June, cherries were the second most popular fruit (after strawberries). Their consumption was declared by 71% of consumers, which compared to June 2023 means an increase of 28 pp. Last year, GUS estimated cherry harvests in Poland at 69,000 tonnes. In 2022 – after an impressive increase of 30% – the harvests amounted to 77,000 t. Most goes to domestic sales
“We can export to many places, e.g. to the United Arab Emirates. There is no problem with delivering cherries, because small amounts on a pallet get on a plane and in a few hours it is already in place. I think this is not a large scale, because the majority of our cherries are sold in the country,” says the vice president of the Polish Union of Fruit Growers. “Some cherries go to our close neighbors: Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia. This is often direct export. There are farms in Poland that export most of their production directly there, not through intermediaries. However, the scale of this is not known.
