The Argentine province of Río Negro recorded an 11% rise in pear stocks compared to the same period in 2010, with total volumes of 284,744 metric tons (MT) stored in freezers, reported Rionegro.com.

The story reported concern over large volumes of fruit with ripeness indices at the limit, meaning the pears need to be released to the market quickly to have commercial value in the market.

"The pear harvest was abundant, or at least a greater volume than last year, because we have to wait for the values. The situation for our market in terms of fruit in cold will begin at the end of April. At that point we'll have to start to look very carefully at how stock numbers move," one exporter told the website.

The results released by the prvince's fruit department showed the largest proportion of pears in stock was of the Packham's variety, representing 38% of the total, followed by Williams (29%) and Beurré D’Anjou (20%).

Source: www.freshfruitportal.com