Early Sweet Cherry Producers Face Damage in Kemalpasa in the Izmir Province of Turkey

Due to adverse weather conditions in Kemalpasa in the Izmir province of Turkey, 80% of early sweet cherry trees were damaged. There are 3 million cherry trees on an area of ​​8,600 hectares in Izmir's Kemalpasa district. The early cherries, which were planned to be harvested in the first week of May, cracked due to adverse weather conditions and caught a fungal disease. Farmers moved on and started to harvest the Salihli and Napoleon varieties which ripened about 10 days after the early cherries. Around 800K MT of sweet cherries are produced annually in Turkey, with the city of Izmir responsible for around 90K MT of that production. The sweet cherry production in Izmir mainly takes place in the Kemalpasa district where the annual production volume is approximately around 60K MT.