Objective:
In order to contribute to greater market transparency, APFC - Associação de Produtores Florestais, conducts an impartial sampling and issues since 2015 a press release on pine cone average yields in the Coruche region (Portugal).
For the fifth consecutive year, APFC has used a methodology for sampling the cone quality at 8 sites throughout the municipality of Coruche in order to represent the entire area of pine production.
Each sample has 10 cones harvested randomly from each of 30 trees per site. The cones are weighted before opening, the inshell pine nuts are removed mechanically and shelled manually (sample of 2 kg). The kernels are weighed at a reference humidity (9%) and referred to the cone weight.
Context:
Since the peak of pine cone production occurred in 2010/11, with an export record of 1.62 million kilograms (INE, 2014) and coinciding with the first detection in Portugal of the exotic invasive conifer seed sucking bug Leptoglossus occidentalis in October 2010, the yield of pine nut kernels (ratio between the weight of pine nut kernels and the fresh weight of pine cones) has been a constant concern of producers and industrials, the first years often rendering less than 2.5% kernel per cone weight.
Pine cones can be classified in the last years considering the kernel yield as an quality indicator, since kernel are the final product. The higher the yield, the better the price to be paid.
Contacts:
Conceição Santos Silva, mcsilva@unac.pt, http://www.unac.pt/