Sunflower cultivation in the province of Seville.
Run, grab your camera and fly… Or drive to Carmona, because this year –as they warn us from their tourist office– the sunflowers that have made this Sevillian town so famous have already bloomed. And taking into account that, of the hundred days that this herbaceous plant of the Asteraceae family lives, only about 30 is in flower, you can't rest on your laurels (although that is another equally magical report, but much more aromatic).
The province of Seville already has rolled out its yellow carpet And you may never get a chance like this again to take June's most searched photo for social networks without the need to separate Japanese tourists on your way. They used to hire (for about €30) local taxi drivers to take them to the most populated sunflower fields, but you are lucky enough to be able to drive your private car on country roads and paths to find the most photogenic terrain. And they are not few, since, according to the Carmonense Agricultural cooperative, In Carmona, approximately 30,000 hectares of sunflower crops are planted.
ORGANIZED VISIT
They confirm from the Tourist Office that they they do not offer organized visits to the crops, but if you go to the Las Coronas farmhouse you can get rid of the narcissistic bug (here is another report that is just as floral and emotional, but much earlier) by taking a picture of yourself in the lines of sunflowers that, as an ornamental, surround its lavender fields, those that, as explained by Lola Cuaresma, her event planner, you can visit at sunset to photograph a sunset much more romantic and violet.
five euros costs the general ticket that includes a tour of the farm, but once you are there, it is advisable to stay for a guided tour of the facilities, which includes (from €15) technical explanations (and tasting) on its main crop, aloe vera, species that, by the way, also has an interesting photo in winter, when its flowering period ends.
SPONSOR A SUNFLOWER
another farm, the San Ygnacio farm, in the municipality of Carmona, launched a most striking initiative some time ago, that of sponsor a field of sunflowers of about 200 square meters for €200 per year.
The Japanese were also the ones who, fascinated by this flower that varies its orientation according to the position of the sun, They sponsored these lands to receive photos of the sunflowers and monitor their cultivation online from “birth until the fruit ripened and the plant withered”, as explained by Luis Manuel Pérez Barrera, promoter of this project on the farm together with his sister, Victoria.
Wonderful fields of sunflowers in Andalusia.
The one dubbed by the local press as sunflower “virtual sharecropping” includes visit to the crops in spring, if the 'owner' so wishes, and even in previous years have come to send a stuffed sunflower and envelopes of seeds, in order to get a little closer and always keep in mind the fields of Carmona when the plants have already withered and so only the memory remains in the form of an instagrammable photograph.