PLUM CULTURE IN ROMANIA: PRESENT SITUATION AND PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

The European plum (Prunus domestica) and its sub species the Bullace (Prunus insititia) were the main traditional fruit trees cultivated in Romania. The size of the plum growing area diminished from 80% (beginning of the XX st Century) to less then 40% (after the year 2000). Romania was in the last century one of the top plum producers in the world, with recorded production between 962,000 t (1969) and 252,200 t (1995). During the last decade, plum production has varied from 250,000 to 400,000 t/year, which is below the national potential (the 40-year average is over 565,000 t). In the past, plum culture in Romania was mainly focused on autochthonous cultivars that were processed into alcohol (85% of the plum production). Fruits were processed through distillation into plum brandy called ţuica (spelled tzuica). In the last 40 years, plum culture has been switched to other fruit uses: fresh consumption, drying and processing into jam or marmalade, although alcohol production has remained quite high (35-45%). Major changes have occurred in the cultivar assortment as result of introduction of new bred Romanian and foreign cultivars for fresh consumption ('Centenar', 'Tuleu timpuriu', 'Carpatin', 'Minerva', 'Silvia', 'Record', etc) or for drying ('Andreea', 'Stanley'). The growing technique has improved from average yields of 2-3 t/ha to 12-15 t/ha in non-irrigated conditions. After 1990, plum culture in Romania suffered a major decrease in terms of production due to the return of the land from state and cooperative farms to the owners. Many orchards were pulled out, others were abandoned and the establishment of new plum orchards was very scattered. Nowadays, the total surface of plum orchards is less than 80,000 ha, most of them being old (20-25 years). The perspectives of plum culture have diminished, in this respect new plantings will be rare, the total orchard surface will decrease to about 50,000 ha and the fruits resulting will be used for fresh consumption, drying and very little of them for processing into brandy.