Clementine
Small, easy to peel and nearly seedless, the clementine keeps the Almerian winter company. The province counts in Andalusian mandarins, and IFAPA has trialled the Clementina de Nules on its coast.
The clementine belongs to the broad commercial family of mandarins. For the 2024/2025 season, Almería held 2,574 hectares of mandarin trees and some 55,238 tonnes — 13% of Andalusia's area and 10% of its production. Those figures cover clementines, mandarins and hybrids alike: they do not allow the whole provincial volume to be credited to the clementine alone.
IFAPA provides a more precise anchor: its teams evaluated the Clementina de Nules on different rootstocks under the agroclimatic conditions of Almería's coast — a locally studied adaptation, not a variety born in the province. In the Bajo Andarax, the Junta separately recorded 102 hectares of mandarin trees in the mid-2010s, and an older archive mentions organic citrus growers in Alhama, without distinguishing the species.
Early clementines open the season in autumn; mid-season and late groups extend the supply through winter. It is the pocket fruit of cold-weather table talk: small, loose-skinned, the one that scents your fingers and vanishes segment by segment before anyone notices.
Varieties
- Clementina de Nules, trialled by IFAPA in Almería
- Early clementines
- Mid-season and late clementines