Karaman expects record 800,000-tonne apple crop as early Gala harvest begins

Early Gala harvest opens the season

Apple growers in Karaman, one of Turkey’s principal production areas for the fruit, have started harvesting the early summer Gala variety. The opening of the season marks a sharp recovery from last year, when severe frost left the province with almost no marketable apple crop.

Mehmet Bayram, chairman of the Karaman Chamber of Agriculture, visited an orchard as picking began and said the province was having a productive year. Apple grower Kadir Şahin also described yields across Karaman as very strong, contrasting current conditions with the frost-hit previous season.

Output forecast at record 800,000 tonnes

Karaman is expected to produce about 800,000 tonnes of apples this year, which Bayram said would be the highest harvest in the province’s history. The forecast represents a major turnaround after frost caused damage of up to 90% last year, according to Haberler.com.

The scale of the recovery matters beyond individual farms. A crop of this size will increase the volume requiring picking crews, orchard handling, packaging, cold storage and transport over a concentrated period. It will also give processors and fresh-fruit buyers substantially more supply to manage than during the previous season, when frost sharply restricted availability.

Delayed start compresses logistics schedule

Bayram said this year’s harvest began 15 days later than usual and would last approximately 60 days. He also said harvesting across the province would continue until November as later varieties mature. The combination of a delayed opening and record expected output could concentrate demand for labor, crates, packing capacity, refrigerated storage and truck availability during the main picking window.

Karaman has more than 15 million apple trees and ranks first in Turkey by tree count, according to Bayram. That production base makes the province an important source of domestic fresh-fruit supply. The fruit’s color and aroma are developing well, he said, and the first Gala apples are expected to reach consumers shortly. Actual market effects will depend on how much of the forecast crop meets commercial grades and how efficiently growers, packers and carriers move the larger volume through the supply chain.