PEAR INDUSTRY YIELD TRENDS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE: DISTRICTS AND CULTIVARS

In 1999, the overall pear production area in Southern Europe was 126,000 hectares.
The leading growing countries were Italy (48,000 ha), Spain (41,000 ha) and France (14,000 ha), followed by Portugal and Greece.
In these five countries, production has been stable at 2 million tonnes.
The most widespread cultivars are ‘Conference’ and ‘Williams’, with about 14% each, followed by ‘Abbé Fétel’ and ‘Blanquilla’, with a share of about 12% each. ‘Guyot-Limonera’ appears definitely lower.
The trend is positive for ‘Conference’, with an annual increase of 3% and production over 300,000 tonnes. ‘Williams’ production has been keeping steady between 250,000 and 300,000 ha in the last few years. ‘Abbé Fétel’ mostly produced in Italy, is over 250,000 tonnes, whereas production of the Spanish ‘Blanquilla’ in the last years is over 200,000 tonnes.
Finally, ‘Guyot-Limonera’ production has been dropping to about 100,000 tonnes.
No meaningful changes can be foreseen for the near future but the Portuguese ‘Rocha’ could further increase its production potential.

VIII International Symposium on Pear

V. Mazzotti, G. Miotto, E. Macchi

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2002.596.6