GUA MUSANG, May 31 — The ongoing El Nino phenomenon has an impact on the production of durians in this district and growers expect an increase in prices due to lower yields of fruit this season.

The hot weather and erratic rainfall cause most of the durian flowers to dry up and the fruit quickly fall before reaching maturity.

Durian orchard operator Tina Chong, 45, said that for this season the fruit production of her 1,000 durian trees experienced a decline of 70 per cent from last year.

"The production of durian fruit is not very encouraging this year, trees that usually bear fruit from 300 to 400 fruits for one season are also seen to be almost unable to produce fruit at all.

"All growers are affected by the hot weather this year so I think the price of durian will increase due to less fruits in the market,” she told Bernama recently.

Tina, who cultivates various types of durian such as musang king and kampung durian in a nine-hectares orchard, said musang king durians were priced between RM35 and RM80 per kilogramme last year depending on the grade. — Bernama