Vitalija Kuliešienė, president of the Lithuanian Business Orchards Association “Fruits and Berries,” told 15min that the storm did not spare the business orchards.
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“First of all, it shook off quite a few unripe apples – in some orchards, a lot of them fell. However, even greater losses are recorded in farms where the wind knocked down entire trees grown specifically for this year’s harvest. Of course, the situation is not the same in all orchards. Some suffered more, others less damage,” she said.
Nevertheless, according to her, the worst situation is in the Biržai district: “There, you can practically find one or two rows of fallen trees everywhere. And throughout Lithuania, many apples have fallen to the ground from the trees.”
The poor situation in Biržai was also confirmed by Robertas Rinkevičius, a representative of “Mūsų gojus.”
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“It knocked down some of the trees – maybe about a hundred with roots. The ground got a lot of moisture and they fell over. I would guess it was more due to moisture than wind. It also shook the apples quite a bit: some were shaken off, some may have been damaged,” the man said.
According to him, about 5–10 percent of the harvest will be affected. “It seems it did not cause greater damage, but what scared us the most were the fallen trees – seeing such a sight made us realize how strong the storm was. This is nature, you can’t do anything against it,” said R. Rinkevičius.
The man noticed the storm damage on Saturday morning, but was still working intensively in the orchard on Monday. “It will take time to clean up. We are trying to restore the bent trees to their place, and some are already uprooted, so we are removing them from the orchard altogether,” he said.
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