FRUIT GROWING IN SOUTH TYROL

In the South Tyrol (Province of Bozen/Italy) there are now 15 600 ha. of fruit orchards.
Apples are grown on about 98 % of this area (15 300 hectares) while pear-trees occupy 2 % of it.

Other fruits, which are less important, include apricots in the Vinschgau, sour cherries in the Eisack valley and black currants and strawberries on some mountain-farms.

In the whole of Italy there were about 69 400 ha. of commercial apple plantings in 1977, so the South Tyrol has about 22 % of the whole Italian production area.

Table 1 shows the apple-growing areas of the most important Italian regions:

Table 1 – Apple growing regions of Italy.

Regions

Hectares

Share in %

South Tyrol/Trentino	24 800	35,8
– South Tyrol	15 300	22,0
– Trentino	9 500	13,8
Emilia-Romagna	15 000	21,7
Veneto	10 900	15,8
Piemont	7 100	10,3
Campania	4 500	6,6
Others	7 000	9,8

Total for Italy

69 400

100,0

If as the term of comparison we take the annual production, the South Tyrol with an average of 400 000 tons gives 20 % of the national apple-production or about 6–7 % of the total yield of the nine EEC countries.

Symposium on Research and Development on Orchard and Plantation Systems

H. Oberhofer

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1981.114.1