Ahmet Şahan, Director of Pistachio Research Institute, said, “When we look at the field observations, there is a very good fruit set in pistachio trees.”
Fruit set in pistachio trees has created high yield expectations.
Pistachios, one of the most important agricultural products of the Southeastern Anatolia Region, especially in Şanlıurfa and Gaziantep, are expected to have a “year of wealth”.
The Pistachio Research Institute will examine the pistachio orchards with a team of 60 people and announce the yield estimate to the public this year, as it does every year.
Institute Director Ahmet Şahan told AA correspondent that pistachios are among Turkey’s most important agricultural products.
Stating that more than 90 percent of Turkey’s pistachio production is made in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, Şahan said, “Only Şanlıurfa and Gaziantep meet 70 percent of our country’s production. We rank 3rd in pistachio production in the world. In addition, the demand for pistachios has also increased in recent years as it has become a much more valuable product and is a product that makes producers and farmers smile. ” he said.
Stating that pistachio production, which was 2 thousand tons in the first years of the Republic, approached 150 thousand tons in the early 2010s and exceeded 200 thousand tons after 2020, Şahan said:
“With the high demand of our farmers, the planting of new saplings and the establishment of new gardens, pistachio saplings have been planted half as much as our 60 million pistachio trees. This means that with the fruiting of these trees, our production will increase by around 50 percent in the next 4-5 years.”
This year is the “year of wealth”
Reminding that pistachio yields one year and its yield decreases the following year, Şahan continued as follows:
“Last year it was low because we had a year of absence. Despite this, we produced 176 thousand tons of pistachios. This year is the ‘year of existence’ in pistachios. When we look at the field observations, there is very good fruit set in pistachio trees. Therefore, we expect a high yield. With this increase, I think we will be ahead of Iran in the world ranking in a few years. Maybe we can even rank first in the following years. The yield seems to be high this year. There were problems in some orchards due to hail in some regions in March and April, too much rain during the flowering period of pistachios and limited pollination. These risks are still present. When these risks are over, we will conduct a yield study in July with engineer friends in the region and determine our pistachio production this year.”
Şahan noted that the most important task of farmers during this period is to fertilize, feed and irrigate pistachios with pesticides against certain diseases.
