There are practically no fruits on about 180 mandarin trees, out of a total of about 300.000, claims the president of the Agrumi Ulcinj Association, Franjo Maković.

The mandarin crop in Ulcinj is even 60 percent smaller than expected, so the losses in agricultural farms throughout the municipality are huge.

President of the Association Agrumi Ulcinj Franjo Maković he said that on the territory of the municipality of Ulcinj there are about 300 thousand mandarin roots, which on average produce between 60 and 100 kilograms of fruit. This means that the fruit with about 180 thousand roots is unusable, that is, the crop is smaller by 10.000 to 18.000 tons.

"It is an incalculable damage, huge amounts of crops have perished. At the end of August, the tangerines started to fall from the trees, and by then they were unusable. We were told by the Institute and advisory services from Bar and Ulcinj that it was allegedly due to heatstroke, because on two occasions, for ten days each, in August the temperatures were continuously above 40 degrees. Later in September, the so-called Mediterranean midge arrived and additionally decimated the yields", said Maković for "Vijesti".

He stated that chohara and zorica rana, a new variety of mandarin, were particularly affected.

In Ulcinj, forged vasi and late ovari are also grown, which give birth later and will probably have the expected yield.

Maković stated that there were no placement problems for the remaining 40 percent of the class.

"This is a great loss for the state, let alone for a municipality. We wrote, we are asking for compensation for the damage and we hope so," he said.

He says that he has been engaged in mandarin production for 30 years, and he has been the president of the Association for three years. He says that he has about 600 trees and that he also suffered damage to about 60 percent of the stock.

"This is the first time in 30 years that I have experienced something like this. I call on the authorities to help us with expert advice from the beginning of next year, so that we can avoid possible damage to yields in time. Many farmers would not withstand such losses twice in a row", warned Maković.

Orange and clementine yield halved, lemon stable

Producers of oranges also suffered great damage, and the harvest is at the level of 50 percent of what was planned, claims Maković.

"In Ulcinj, we have more than 10 orange trees, which means that half have died. It is similar with clementines. As for the lemons, so far so good,” he says.

Source - https://en.vijesti.me