According to official figures from the Office of Agricultural Studies and Policies (PASO), the Region of Coquimbo has more than 70 percent of the hectares devoted for the cultivation of clementines and mandarins in the country. It also is the third largest area planted in the area, after table grapes and avocado.
Its importance for the regional and national industry is heightened by the increase in sales abroad during 2015, a period when there was a 35 percent increase over 2014, thanks to the 76,168 tons of easy peelers that were commercialized.
These figures placed clementines and mandarins as the country's main citrus export.
The continual introduction of new technologies in the cultivation process, which serve to produce the seedless fruit that is most coveted in the United States, a market that receives almost 90 percent of the product, has been very important to achieve this exports.
"Clementines are very easy to seed. They produce seeds very easily if they get pollen from other citrus fruit. When that happens, producers can't send them to the external market. US providers require seedless clementines," said Andres Link, the technical manager at Subsole for avocados, citrus, and persistent leave orchards.
About five years ago, the Fourth Region didn't have this problem; however, due to the droughts and the reduction in surface that occurred, the bees have started to travel longer distances in search of food, which, as a result, brought cross-pollination and the emergence of seeds in these fruits.
As a result, some producers decided to cover their fields with meshes, a technique employed successfully in Australia and the United States which involves placing a mesh over the tops of the trees and closing them at their bottom to prevent the entry of insects that feed on pollen.
The process requires a group of four people and the use of hydraulic arms incorporated onto a tractor to secure the mesh to the ground.
Estimates are that this technology, which is acquired through suppliers in the United States, has an amortization of $1,500 to $1,800 dollars per hectare. According to Andres Link, "if 40 percent of an orchard's fruit has seed, incorporation is justified."
Subsole tried different techniques for four years, such as using chilli extracts or applying copper at the bloom level, without achieving the desired effect.
In 2013 they decided to try the meshes and the results have been more than positive.
They have also begun to recover the lost area. The first stage of implementation included 12 hectares and, in the short term, they expected to reach 35 hectares. Having the 60 hectares they once had is part of a longer process.
Apart from using meshes to maintain the seedless standards the company is also cultivating the Tango variety, which was obtained after a lengthy investigation by the University of California, as it is a variety that has no seeds and doesn't pollinate the rest of other fruits.
