Amount harvested last year exceeds previous year
May 26, 2015
Last year in Wakayama Prefecture, the amount of mikans
harvested was 173,700 tons, making it the prefecture with the largest harvest
in Japan for the 11th consecutive year.
The years in which there is a bumper crop and the years in
which the harvest is poor (thus decreasing the number of overall fruits)
switches off every other year. However, last year, which happened to be a bad
harvest year saw a 3% increase in harvest compared to the year before that –
which was supposed to be a good harvest year. It had been 18 years since the
harvest in a bad year exceeded the harvest in a good year.
In the summary provided by the Kinki Region Agricultural
Administration’s Wakayama Prefectural Center, compared with the last poor
harvest year (2012) the harvest in 2014 had increased by 11,100 tons (7%).
Excluding the amounts consumed in households, the amount of mikans exported
from the prefecture increased from 157,700 tons by 10,100 tons (7%). The amount
harvested per 1,000 m2 increased by 170 kilograms to make a total of
2,350 kilograms per 1,000 square meters.
Compared to the last good harvest year (2013), the harvest
amount increased by 4,800 tons (3%) and the exported amount increased by 3,500
tons (2%).
The Center offered the following explanation for the
increase, “Compared to 2013 which had bad weather, 2014 saw a much higher
number of blooming [mikan] flowers. It also comes down to the fact that there
was very little damage from typhoons.” It was also reported that the fruits
didn’t have a chance to ripen well, causing relatively small fruit, since there
was very little rain from the beginning of June.
Broken down by prefecture, mikans harvested in Wakayama make
up about 20% of the national harvest. It has been number one for 11 consecutive
years, since 2004. Number
two is Ehime Prefecture (15%) and number
three is Shizuoka Prefecture (14%).
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