Arthur Pereira, edited by Laura Laplaud 9:36 a.m., July 25, 2022, modified at 9:37 a.m., July 25, 2022

The heat wave and the worrying drought: 86 departments are on drought alert.

Orders limiting water consumption have been issued in many municipalities.

For farmers and arborists, the lack of rain is a disaster.

This is the case of apple producers whose crops are lost. 

After the hail at the beginning of the year, the farmers are bearing the brunt this time of the high heat.

Some have lost a whole part of their crops, especially early vegetables.

Arborists have also said goodbye to part of their hectares ravaged by record temperatures.

Europe 1 went to Thierry Hector, arborist in the department of Eure.

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Alleys of apple trees, alleys of plum trees, alleys of pear trees.

In total, seven hectares of farms were affected by the heat wave.

"We have some burnt fruits. They have sunburn, like a human being... Under the epidermis, it's completely brown, it's completely cooked", explains Thierry Hector, arborist.

"It's unsaleable"

"We see small brown dots five millimeters under the skin. The flesh is completely burned. It's totally lost, the apple can never be remade, it's unsaleable," he sighs.

"The leaves are completely brown, burnt from the sunburn of the past few days. If it stopped today, the loss would be around 10% of apples with sunburn. Now it's July 20. We still have a very complicated month and a half to go," he says.

Should the harvest date be brought forward?

It is therefore a whole part of its production that risks not being marketed.

With climate change, the arborist could even "advance the harvest".

"If this lack of water continues, as the fruits ripen much faster than usual, instead of picking on the 20th, we could pick on August 10, which never happened," he confides.

This would force Thierry Hector to turn on his cold room earlier, which would increase his electricity bill.

Another consequence: the lack of customers, mostly on vacation during the first half of August.