The Current State of Fruit Production in Czech Republic

Fruit growing is traditional part of Czech agriculture. Present fruit production is less than consumption. Import of domestic fruit species is increasing, while the rentability of fruit production is decreasing. Total ackredge of orchards is 22.863 ha, while 17.785 ha represents intensively cultivated orchards. Age structure is weak point of production. The worst age-structure have orchards with berries, peaches, apples and souer cherries, whilst age of plums, pears and black currant orchards is the best. For last 17 years 11.140 ha of new orchards has been planted. In last years only 300 400 ha of new orchards was set by year, but double ackredge is essential for succesfull orchards renewal. Despite this fact, decrease of production is not too significant yet due to modem technologies used in new orchads. Apart from high investment demands, the weather negatively influenced rentability of production in years 2010, 2011 and 2012. Environmentaly friendly growing systems are widely applied in czech orchards. Organic growing management is applied on 6.720 ha of orchards, while Integraded Production is applied on 11.508 ha of orchards. Marketing plays a key role in fruit-growing rentability. 75% of fruits is sold via supermarket chains. In given situation the concentration of supply is needed. 50% of domestic fruit production is sold via 10 Producers 'organisations. Yearly, 190.000 t of nontropical fruit species is impoted (apples 70-80.000 t). Mostly fruit for processing is exported. Fruit comsumption in the Czech Republic is about 84 kg a year per capita, from which 22.5 kg are apples. Further devolopment of fruit-growing sector rely on high yield and fruit quality. While the field of plant protection is well solved, use of fertilizers and ways of fertilizing are still underestimated. There is also clear tendency to use supportive products, e.g. plant hormones, which can increase fruit quality and rentability of production significantly.