"When looking at the apples in storage, you can see that brown spots have appeared in a percentage of them which cover only the skin," affirms Sławomir Kędzierski, of the Unia Owocowa ("Fruit Union").
Since the flesh is not damaged and the taste remains the same, such apples can be used for processing, and given the additional costs involved in their storage, it is cheaper to sell them to the industry.
"We have access to over 100 thousand tonnes of fruit in cold storage and here you can see that the problem is certainly common, especially with varieties like Jonagored and Idared," affirms Michał Lachowicz, president of the consortium "Appolonia".
Various studies have been conducted to explain why this occurs. It is believed that one of the main reasons could be a high temperature during the harvest," explains Paul Jendrzejczak, apple producer at "Agroserw."
And there are no effective methods to completely prevent the disease. Growers are concerned about the export of apples. I heard that a customer returned 4 pallets due to the fact that the quality of the apples was compromised after just a day in transit. I know of cases where the growers had shipped 500 tonnes or more. At this point, it is a tragedy," explains Michał Lachowicz, president of the consortium "Appolonia".
They assure that there are fears the market will suffer a shortage of quality apples because of them not meeting the required quality standards and that most of them will just be used for processing.
This state of affairs does certainly not help improve the already difficult situation on the Polish apple market and industry sources believe it all points to another dry year.
