According to Chilenut's first estimates, the rains have affected about 30,000 tons of nuts, 33% of which were severely damaged.
The heavy rainfall during the past weekend negatively impacted the harvest of nuts. The Chandler variety, which is a late variety, suffered severe damage from all the water it received for almost three days and that, depending on the area, exceeded 100 mm.
According to the first polls conducted by the Association of Producers and Exporters of Nuts (Chilenut), 30,000 tons of the Chandler variety were affected by the rains, 10,000 of which would present severe damage and the remaining tons have a mild to medium damage.
Regarding the Serr variety, Chilenut estimates that the rains seriously harmed 2,000 tons of this variety, while another 4,000 tons would have been affected less.
According to the president of the trade association and advisor for Fedefruta, Juan Luis Vial, "the first consequence will be that some exporters won't be able to comply with the shipments they had agreed on for the first months of the year, mainly in those varieties in halves or light-colored butterflies."
Vial said the entity he represented was conducting a census to the producers to better measure how the rains affected the production volume. He also stated that he was hopeful that the new bad weather front announced for next weekend would have a lower intensity so that they could start collecting and drying the nuts that were still unharvested.
In turn, the president of Fedefruta, Juan Carolus Brown Bauza, said that the "(nuts) that were on the ground will be lost and we must properly dry the ones in the trees so that they don't lose their commercial value ".
Source - www.freshplaza.com
