The plum industry in the Republic of Croatia

This paper presents data on plum production in Croatia, including plant material production, plantation area, fruit production and the trade balance of fresh fruit and processed products (import-export). Plum (Prunus domestica L.) is a popular fruit species in Croatia.
It is grown in home gardens, on small family farms and large plantations.
Compared to other fruit species, it comes second in acreage, occupying 18.28% of all fruit orchards (5014.9 ha of plum orchards out of 27,431.86 ha of fruit orchards). According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, less than 20,000 t plums are produced annually in Croatia.
Plum production is not sufficient to cover the needs of the domestic market, so about 1640 t of fresh fruit are imported annually.
Based on 10-year data, the most common rootstock is Prunus cerasifera L. ‘Myrobalana’ (98.97%), while the most common cultivar is ‘Cacak Beauty’ (21.94%), followed by ‘Cacak Rich’ (20.62%), ‘Stanley’ (15.58%) and ‘Cacak Best’ (10.68%). The average number of trees ha^-1 is 398. Of the total number of registered trees, only 5.2% are grown in the Adriatic part of Croatia, and the remaining 94.8% (4,752.4 ha) in the continental part.
In the past decade, modern experimental orchards have been established on less-vigorous rootstocks (‘WaxWa’ and ‘Wavit’) in combination with economically valuable cultivars, mainly German selections.
Annual Croatian plum imports amount to 1,644.2 t fresh plums and 548.4 t dried plums, while exports include 398.9 t plum brandy.

XI International Symposium on Plum and Prune Genetics, Breeding and Pomology

A. Biško, T. Jelačić, D. Miloloža, Z. Savić, K. Brus

Prunus domestica, cultivar, rootstock, import, export

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2019.1260.34