Grape harvesting began in Zhetissai district, South Kazakhstan region. This year, farmers planted it on 448,000 hectares, and intend to get at least 5,000 tonnes of crops. Harvested grapes are sorted out and put into boxes for further transportation. Harvest is sent to the markets directly from the fields.
“Right now, farmers harvest early varieties of grapes. They have already gathered about a thousand tonnes. Products are mainly sent to the markets in the capital, Shymkent and Almaty,” Nurtas Tursynbekov, chief expert of the Agriculture Department at Zhetissai District Administration, said.
Nine weather resistant and high crop yield cultivars of grapes are harvested there. They include ‘Arcadia’, ‘Lydia, ‘Baikonur’, ‘Anyuta’, ‘Veles’, ‘Kodryanka’, ‘Academician’, and ‘Dubovsky’. Farmers use drip irrigation out there.
“We plan to harvest up to ten tonnes of grape from each hectare for the market sale. At present, we sell grapes in Shymkent city. Now we are going to tap into the markets of Perm, Russia,” shared farm director Rauch Nepaliyev.
