Heavy rains and high winds swept Israel on Tuesday night and through Wednesday as a major winter storm with hail and snow descended upon the country. The big question is what crops are affected and how badly.

Oron Ziv from Befresh Europe explains that most of the Orri clementines are still on the tree. “They are protected with hail nets, but with this amount of rain and wind the fruit will be affected. It is only difficult to say how little or great. However growers need to wait 5 to 6 days before they can continue with harvesting." So there won't be a lot of packing and loading in the following week. As there is already some fruit on the way to Europe, the retailers will receive their fruit. However for the open market, there might be less product for the coming week. “Luckily the mineola harvest is almost finished and as grapefruit is a very solid product, I don’t expect a lot of problems with that item,” Oron continues.

Also Sharon fruit and pomegranate has been harvested. “It is not as bad as the storm last year,” said Eitan Zvi of Galil Export. Greenhouse crops will not be damaged, as these regions were not hit that hard. “The greenhouses may have some small damages, because of the wind, but nothing severe.” For avocado Galil works with Milouot in the north. “Every kibbutz reported damage of a few tons of avocado, which is very minor.” The storm caused some avocados to fall from the tree. If the fruit is still good it will go to the local market.

Ports in Haifa and Ashdod were closed for a while and this morning they are open again. This caused a slow down at the ports. There is a queue for vessels to wait for loading and they will leave a couple of days after schedule.”

Source - http://www.freshplaza.com/