The wave of frost hit fruit and wine crops, especially in the Southwest. The extent of the damage should manifest itself in the coming days.
From Charente to the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the agricultural southwest of France appeared particularly affected on Sunday morning by frost damage to young shoots, but the whole agricultural sector feared two more nights “difficult” coming to France.
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“The frost episode in the night from Saturday to Sunday particularly affected the Garonne valley, the Charentes, the Dordogne, as far as the Pyrénées-Atlantiques with temperatures which fell to -2 and -3 degrees”Jérôme Despey, deputy secretary general of the FNSEA, told AFP.
In this region of the South-West, the stone fruit trees but also the apple trees whose vegetation had just started to emerge were affected, as well as, in the vines, the earliest grape varieties in the region. “like Chardonnay, Cabernet or Merlot”said Mr. Despey.
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Assessment of the damage to come in the coming days
“The damage has not all been identified yet”, underlined Jérôme Despey, who is himself a winegrower in the Hérault. And “we fear the worst for the crops, including further south when the wind drops, over the next two nights, Sunday to Monday and Monday to Tuesday”he added.
In the wine regions of the center-east of the country such as Chablis, very affected by spring frosts last year, the traditional means of combating frost have been activated such as anti-frost towers, wind mixing and sprinkling of the vines, for “try to avoid tragedies such as we already experienced last year”he detailed.
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In 2021, an early spring causing the beginning of budding of the vegetation (the “bud burst” in the vines) was followed by an episode of frost from April 3 to 10, causing a lot of damage in the vines in particular. An exceptional envelope of one billion euros had been made available by the government, in particular for arborists and winegrowers who had lost all or part of their harvest for the year, as well as for certain cereal producers.
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