Spain: García Carrión to produce pineapples in Murcia
by Market Insider
Sunday, 01 Mar. 2015
The
president of the beverage company J. García Carrión, José García Carrión, aims
for the industrial production of tropical pineapple juice to start in 2018,
after successfully managing to cultivate the crop in Murcian greenhouses.
According
to García Carrión, the first test stage has already been completed with
positive results, with the production of "great pineapples" and other
tropical fruits, such as passion fruit, in greenhouses.
They are
now planting in the open field, in Campo de Cartagena, with the unexpected help
of climate change.
He stated
that the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, in charge of research, aims to
reduce the time that the crop needs to develop from 18 months down to about 9
months to ensure the economic viability of this agronomic project.
According
to the president, the company could already sell these greenhouse-grown
pineapples to greengrocers if they wanted, which would be "much better or
just as good as those from Costa Rica," but explained that this is not the
project's goal, but the production of juices.
To this
end, "we need to obtain a better yield per hectare, and grow them in the
open field, because producing pineapples in a greenhouse is a solution, but
financially it has the same cost as importing."
Source: EFEAGRO
Publication date: 2/27/2015