If you are agricultural entrepreneur looking for new locations in so called "Eastern Europe" to invest in horticultural ventures and develop fruit or vegetables enterprises then you need to read this post and look at exhibited 2 meteo maps.
So far Dutch, English or German horticultural ventures have been focusing on countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Poland etc. There are several reasons for this such as lower cost of production, promising local market sizes, proximity to their original, home markets, understandable legal and operating environment.
However, there is one more country further east as well as farther south across Black Sea: Georgia. While for political considerations this country is mostly mentioned as (a distant) Eastern Europe, for climatic and growing conditions it should never be considered together with Eastern Europe.
Georgia's unique climate is made up by 3500m to 5000m high Greater Caucasus mountains range on the north which stops cold Nordic air masses. On its south there is 2500-3500m high Minor Caucasus mountains range which moderate too hot air masses from Arabian deserts. Within Georgia in the west side, there is one particular region called Samegrelo which additionally gets humidity in Summer and warm air in Winter from Black Sea. During recent frost siege over wider region Samegrelo also experienced frosts but not below -3C on 3 nights while during most critical period daytime temperatures mostly maintained +4C...+8C.
In other "normal" years average temperature of coldest month of January is between +5C and +9C.
Now the promised maps. You see Samegrelo as being circled on the east side of Black Sea.
So far Dutch, English or German horticultural ventures have been focusing on countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Poland etc. There are several reasons for this such as lower cost of production, promising local market sizes, proximity to their original, home markets, understandable legal and operating environment.
However, there is one more country further east as well as farther south across Black Sea: Georgia. While for political considerations this country is mostly mentioned as (a distant) Eastern Europe, for climatic and growing conditions it should never be considered together with Eastern Europe.
Georgia's unique climate is made up by 3500m to 5000m high Greater Caucasus mountains range on the north which stops cold Nordic air masses. On its south there is 2500-3500m high Minor Caucasus mountains range which moderate too hot air masses from Arabian deserts. Within Georgia in the west side, there is one particular region called Samegrelo which additionally gets humidity in Summer and warm air in Winter from Black Sea. During recent frost siege over wider region Samegrelo also experienced frosts but not below -3C on 3 nights while during most critical period daytime temperatures mostly maintained +4C...+8C.
In other "normal" years average temperature of coldest month of January is between +5C and +9C.
Now the promised maps. You see Samegrelo as being circled on the east side of Black Sea.
Map 1: while in most of eastern Europe temperatures dropped below -20C,
Samegrelo area remained positive temperature region
Map 2: Green colored areas are positive temperature areas.
As you can see that even within Georgia, Samegrelo is the warmest zone.
Maps belong to Swiss based weather forecasting services company Meteoblue AG.
The author of this entry is horticultural entrepreneur Konstantine Vekua who together with his German and New Zealand friends are developing selected fruits value chains in Samegrelo, Georgia. The company already manages 24ha kiwifruit orchard and plans to develop berries, feijoa and persimmon orchards by the end of year.
To contact me, email: Konstantine.Vekua@nergeta.ge
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