Cold nights shrink strawberries and prices in Poland

The recent weather in Poland has had an effect on strawberries for processing as well as fresh. The season for processed strawberries is reaching its end in the south of Poland with only a week remaining, and will make the switch to northern production.

"Prices are crazy at the moment, with raw materials reaching 1 euro. The quality is quite strange due to the heavy rains, the product is quite small. We had quite dry weather and two days of heavy rains which has made the quality suffer." according to a Polish strawberry grower in the south.

"We had been expecting a good season before the rains. There were a lot of blossoms and each cycle of strawberries has gotten smaller and smaller resulting in 50% less volumes. The warm days with cold nights has also caused issues with the sweetness. The strawberries would start to ripen during the day and then stop at night which has slowed down the ripening process. This has also caused discolouration, with the top of the strawberry being ripe with the bottom still green. Or even worse, mold has started to form on the top of some strawberries while it is still unripe on the bottom. What was supposed to be a good season has gone from bad to worse."

The early raspberry season is also starting now for the industry and they are experiencing the same problems as the strawberries and it seems that it will be a short and intensive season.

"There is something strange going on with the plants and they seem to also be suffering but we haven't yet figured out if it is due to frost or the dry weather from last season. The first fruits were ok but we are getting indications that there might be something going on with the next cycle."

Growers are hoping to see better conditions for the later raspberries which are expected to start in late August.