Avocado under pressure due to an imminent El Niño

There are phenomena that don't allow for half-measures. El Niño is one of them. It's not neutral, it's not gradual, its subtle effects are unpredictable. Rather, it's a turning point that reshapes territories, calendars, and productive certainties. And today, once again, it's back.

In Peru, it's no longer a projection; it's a reality unfolding. Rivers are running high, temperatures have risen in all the valleys, and agriculture, which thrives on delicate balances, is beginning to suffer. Avocados, for example, don't wait. The dry matter has ripened early, and the harvest is swift, almost anxious. There is fruit, yes, but there is also fear. Because when El Niño hits Peru hard, it doesn't just bring water; it brings chaos.

Minimum temperatures rise, plants stop flowering normally, and phenology is disrupted. Blooms become weak, prolonged, and erratic. Pests and diseases appear, and with the floods comes that silent enemy: wood-decay fungus. The entire system is strained, and the impact is not short-term; it lingers for at least two seasons.

But the story changes when you cross the Andes. In Chile, El Niño has a different face. Here, it can be synonymous with recovery, with reservoirs filling up again, with soils being washed clean, with watersheds breathing. After years of drought, its arrival is perceived almost as a promise, especially in the northern part of the country, where water has been a scarce resource and where every season is a gamble.

However, it would be naive to fall into a simplistic view. El Niño is not an automatic savior; he can also be a problem if he arrives in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If it's implemented late, for example, it can completely disrupt spring. Rainfall during peak bloom affects deciduous fruit trees, reducing their yield and disrupting key processes like flower induction. If autumn and winter become too warm, as is already anticipated, the necessary chilling for good flowering simply won't arrive, and without chilling, there's no solid fruiting structure.

This is where agronomy ceases to be merely technical and becomes strategic. The challenge in Chile is not only receiving water, but knowing how to manage it biologically and productively, controlling vigor, reducing nitrogen use during critical periods, prioritizing phosphorus and potassium, and properly inducing shoot maturation. These are decisions that, in a normal year, might be fine-tuning, but in an El Niño year, they are crucial.

And there's another factor that can't be ignored: the physical risk. If the rains are intense—and some are already talking about a historic event, even comparable to the 1997 floods—the damage could be severe: soil saturation, root asphyxiation, proliferation of Phytophthora, hillsides that literally "weep" water for months. Property infrastructure, from roads to drainage systems, becomes a key line of defense.

Meanwhile, the market is also shifting. If Peru brings its harvest forward, as is already happening, and eventually shortens it due to the phenomenon, Chile could find itself with a more favorable trading window, less overlap, clearer markets, and better prices in Europe. This is an opportunity that didn't exist last year, when the overlap in supply put downward pressure on prices.

But even that opportunity comes with caveats. Peruvian fruit harvested in the rain often arrives with poor condition, more rot, and greater uncertainty at its destination. The same could happen with Chilean fruit, especially in coastal or rainier areas, where harvesting can become simply impossible for weeks.

So, is El Niño a threat or an opportunity? The uncomfortable answer is that it's both. And that it will depend, more than on the phenomenon itself, on the adaptability of each production system.

Peru faces a complex scenario, with direct effects on its productivity and its schedule. Chile, on the other hand, operates in a gray area; it can benefit, but it can also make mistakes, it can recover water but lose efficiency, it can gain market share but compromise quality. The season hinges on this fragile balance.

Because in the end, beyond the forecasts and labels, even those that speak of a "Godzilla Child", what really matters is not the magnitude of the phenomenon, but how prepared we are to face it.