An entrepreneur in the Sultanhisar town of Aydin, a city located in southwestern Turkey, has successfully started growing bananas in the greenhouse.
Sultanhisar is known for its strawberry production and is responsible for almost half of Turkey’s strawberry exports. This trial of growing bananas represents another important opportunity for the people in the area.
The grower, Gokhan Ergul, focused on banana production as the labor costs for strawberry production were too high for his liking.
Gokhan set up an 11 meter high greenhouse with 610 trees with fully automated steam and rain machines to grow bananas of the Grand Nain variety. As a result, the grower managed to grow 25 tons of bananas just in the first year of production.
The grower noted that the productivity was well above their expectations, with 40 kilograms of products per tree received, while the expected level was around 25 kilograms. The grower also underlined the benefits of banana production in terms of lower labor costs, with only 4 months of labor required for banana production, compared to 11 months of labor required for strawberry production. Another advantage for the grower is the longer shelf life of bananas compared to strawberries.
Source: Haberler