Of all citrus lines, lemons have the longest calendar. With the right variety and the right storage, lemons can be loaded in every month of the year. The condition is knowing what temperature to hold them at, because lemons do not like the cold. This guide takes importers through varieties, season, storage, packing and quality.
Two varieties, two jobs: Interdonato and Lamas
Turkish lemon exports rest on two varieties.
Interdonato is the early variety that opens the season. The fruit is elongated, with thin, smooth skin and few seeds. It reaches European markets as the first lemon of the new season. It is not left on the tree for long; it is picked and shipped promptly.
Lamas, named after a district of Erdemli in Mersin, is the main-season variety. Its rind is thicker, its juice abundant and its acidity high. Its real value is that it stores well: Lamas picked in winter can be held for months and loaded through spring and summer.
In Hatipoğlu Tarım’s lemon programme, Interdonato is selected at the start of the season and Lamas afterwards, both for size, colour, rind integrity and maturity.
Season: harvest August to March, supply all year
The main harvest runs from August to March. Interdonato starts at the end of summer, followed by mid-season varieties and by Lamas through the winter. From April until the new crop, the gap is covered by Lamas held under controlled conditions. A buyer can therefore run a year-round programme with a single supplier.
How the calendar works across all citrus is set out in our article on citrus export and harvest seasons.
Storage: 12–14 °C at 90–95% humidity
The optimum storage temperature for lemons is 12–14 °C at 90–95% relative humidity. Depending on variety, maturity at harvest and growing area, combined storage and transit can extend up to six months. Lemons picked at the dark-green stage last longest; fully yellow fruit has to be marketed more quickly.
Below that range, chilling injury sets in. The symptoms are pitting of the rind, staining of the segment membranes and reddish blotches on the peel. Moderate to severe chilling injury is usually followed by decay. Setting lemons at the same temperature as apples or grapes will therefore cost the lot; in a mixed load the temperature has to be set for the lemons.
Removing ethylene from the store slows ageing and decay. In controlled atmosphere, 5–10% oxygen with 0–10% carbon dioxide delays the loss of green colour.
Harvest and oil spotting
Lemons are clipped, leaving a short stem. One of the things that matters is the hour of picking. If the fruit is harvested while turgid, in morning dew or after rain, the oil glands in the rind rupture under the slightest pressure. The released oil burns the surrounding tissue and leaves brown marks days later. The defect is called oil spotting (oleocellosis). Prevention is simple: no picking until the fruit is dry, and no overfilled crates.
Packing: washing, waxing, sizing
In the packhouse lemons are washed, waxed, sized and packed to the count the buyer requests. Wax replaces the natural coating lost in washing and reduces water loss. The standard pack is a 30 × 50 × 22 cm plastic crate. Calibre is expressed as the number of fruit per crate; retail prefers medium sizes, while food service favours large, juicy fruit.
The main causes of storage loss in lemons are green mould and blue mould. Green mould enters through wounds in the rind; blue mould can also penetrate intact peel and spreads from one lemon to the next. The real safeguard is therefore careful harvesting: the fewer the cuts, scratches and bruises, the lower the loss.
A buyer’s checklist
In a lemon shipment, check the intensity of the yellow colour and its uniformity within the crate, size, shape, smoothness of the rind, firmness and juice content. On the defect side, look for decay, rind staining, shrivelling and mechanical damage.
Lemon export: from harvest to loading
Exporting lemons from Turkey runs in six steps: harvest, cooling, grading, packing, cold storage and dispatch under cold chain. As a Turkish lemon exporter and supplier, Hatipoğlu Tarım handles all of them in house, in its own facilities. When export-grade fruit is allocated, the buyer’s market, sales channel and transit time are considered together, and every lot bound for Europe is also analysed for residues.
To quote for a lemon export programme we need six details: variety, calibre, packaging, weekly volume, delivery week and destination country. With these in hand, we prepare a loading plan and a quotation.
Hatipoğlu Tarım has exported fresh fruit and vegetables from Antalya since 2002. Under the FİNİKE brand it ships 128 product lines to 42 countries, with harvest, grading, cold storage and dispatch handled in house across five facilities in Serik, Kepez, Mavikent, Yenişehir and Alaşehir.
Tell us the variety, calibre and delivery month you need, and we will send back a season plan and a price.
