This year's cork cam campaign has closed with a volume of extracted cork that is around 3,000 tons, an amount that is close to the usual volumes of three years ago, when there was still no drought in Catalonia.

As for the price of this cork, this year there has been a slight downward trend compared to the previous year.

The effects of drought

This has been a late skinning campaign, which started in the first half of June and lasted until the end of July or in some places until the beginning of August.

The reason for this delay has been the accumulated drought of recent years, which during the first quarter of 2024 left the forests in a state that did not advise the cam. But heavy spring rains, combined with mild temperatures that extended flowering and leaf change, changed expectations and eventually many homeowners got excited about peeling.

However, the drought in the forests is still very intense and the state of vitality of the cork trees is not what it should be. The health effects (cork, fungi and other ailments) direct to the cork, as well as the indirect effects such as the attacks of Lymantria of the years 2019 and 2020, they have reduced the percentage of cork of the highest quality.