Dear Con: Great to hear from you and thanks for the update about the political and horticultural situation in Ireland and Europe in general.. It seems that we are all living the days of the old spaghetti-western movie “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”. I hope the Good will end up winning. The winter in the US and especially in the upper Midwestern states has been miserable. We had three days in January of temperatures between -25 and -30 oC, not including wind-chill, and yesterday, almost the middle of March, we had freezing rain.. Fortunately, the apple buds are still dormant. I will post the job announcement in our department. Best wishes, Mosbah Kushad
From: apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.com <apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.com> On Behalf Of Con.Traas Sent: Friday, March 08, 2019 8:55 AM To: Apple-crop discussion list (apple-c...@virtualorchard.net) <apple-c...@virtualorchard.net> Subject: [apple-crop-2] Technical Officer post at UCD, Ireland Hello all from Ireland. It is quite some time since I posted, so now that I have notice of a job offer in Ireland, I thought it might be an opportune time. I know that emails to discussion groups are nowadays a bit “old-tech”, given the ease of information transfer on twitter and other social media channels, and how quickly news gets around the World in general. In Ireland the 2018 apple season was good. After a late spring (very late by the standards of the last 20 years) we had a historically warm and dry summer that badly affected grassland (livestock) farmers, but the apple crops were good as a consequence. Crops, while tasting excellent, were early, and growers who had migrant pickers booked for October (our traditional peak harvest month) struggled to get the crop harvested in time, unless they could access workers earlier to coincide with the two-week early maturation. This meant that apples have not stored particularly well, and even those that were treated with 1-MCP, suffered from lower than optimal pressures. This is a common issue in Europe this season, as all the main apple growing areas had warmer than normal summertime weather, and earlier maturation. This, combined with record heavy crops in Europe led to problems getting the harvest in, and indeed with storage quality. (Unlike Ireland, which had a normal crop in 2017, much of Europe suffered spring frost in 2017, resulting in a light crop but heavy bloom in 2018). Because of the heavy 2018 crop, combined with ongoing sanctions from Russia prohibiting access to European apples (due in turn to European trade sanctions because of Russian military action and political interference in the Ukraine), the wholesale prices of apples in Europe are dismal. However, retail prices have not changed much, and there are specific possibilities of better prices for growers (club varieties, premium apples, local markets etc). The apple industry in Ireland is still as small as ever, and in general production in Europe is moving from higher-cost (labour) Western countries to lower-cost Eastern countries, with Poland now the largest producer by far. However, even the likes of Poland is now facing labour shortages, and it is non-EU states like the Ukraine who are now supplying labour with 560,000 Ukrainians on work permits in Poland alone. Coming closer to home, the UK Brexit (exit from the European Union) is imminant, and despite discomfort by the likes of fruit growers about where they will get labour for harvest, it looks likely to happen soon. For an Irish perspective that is not good, as the Northern six counties in Ireland are not part of Ireland (politically), but rather part of Great Britain. This northern part of the island of Ireland will Brexit, and most of it will remain in the EU, suggesting the possibility of a border on the island of Ireland, which has not been the case since the peace agreement, and is worrying. From an apple growing perspective it is also not good, as apples are grown in both the northern counties and the southern, and normal trade could be badly affected. At the moment we are experiencing a very early spring (3 weeks ahead of normal), with plum crops in bloom, apples in bud-break, and a long 8 week wait until the risk of night frosts is passed. However, it has been very mild all winter, and so we hope it stays that way now. A lot will be revealed over the next few months, horticulturally and politically speaking. Regarding the job that I mentioned (see PDF attached), University College Dublin is a lovely campus, in a lovely international capital city. Con (Cornelius) Traas Room SR2-009, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Limerick. Ph: 061-202905 M: 086-6091998 T: @theapplefarmer
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