FRUIT GROWING IN ROMANIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

In Romania, fruit growing has an old and rich tradition. During the 20th century, the Romanian fruit growing witnessed dramatic changes. The acreage grown with fruit trees was 340,100 ha in 1927, 184,200 ha in 1950, 428,400 ha in 1970 and 239,900 ha in 1999. Total fruit yield varied during this period of time between 401,100 tons in 1950 and 2,183,000 tons in 1993. In spite of the fact that in 1993 was produced the highest total fruit yield, the average fruit consumption/capita was only of 35.7 kg which is significantly lower than that considered optimal for adult people in temperate zones (62 kg/capita). The main reason of this situation is the poor varietal structure of fruits in which plum trees represented more than 40% of all the fruit trees grown. Another reason would be the low yields/ha registered in all species and cultivars of fruit trees grown in Romania in the last 30-40 years. With a very serious shrink of acreages grown with fruit trees in 1999, the average consumption/capita is expected to become totally unfavorable. There are not many solutions to this problems and one of them certainly means the significant increase of average yields in all fruit species grown in Romania, at least to the level of those achieved in industrial orchards of Western Europe.