Pomegranate production in Balkan countries

Balkan is the historic and geographic name of one part of southeastern Europe that covers area of 550, 000 km². The region include Bulgaria, FYR Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Montenegro, as well as parts of Turkey, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. Mediterranean and continental climate can be seen in Balkans. The region has ancient fruit culture. Mediterranean climate in the region are favorable for growing pomegranates. There were around 100 pomegranate cultivars in Turkey, 30 cultivars in Greece, 20 cultivars in Croatia, 5 cultivars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and 2 cultivars in Montenegro. Over 95 percent of pomegranate in Balkan area are produced by Turkey and the other countries has insignificant amount of production. However pomegranates are important part of fruit diversity sources in the other Balkan countries. Currently intensive production of pomegranate occur only in Turkey. Unfortunatelly there were few breeding studies on pomegranates in these countries. Today, pomegranates are grown mainly in open field in small areas as family business in all Balkan countries. Trickle irrigation systems have been introduced in the recent years and applied now in all countries. Leader in pomegranate production is Turkey in Balkans with near 150.000 tons and followed by Greece with 4.000 tons. Nowadays, in Balkans predominantly low cost production systems of pomegranates are used. Balkan countries are important for pomegranate product diversity and pomegranates mainly processeed in these countries into fruit juice, liqueur, pomegranate sauce, pomegranate vinegar, salad dressing etc. Based on all this information we can conclude that is great potential for improving existing condition in pomegranate production on Balkan. The number of scientific studies are also increased on pomegranates in Balkans in particular last decade.