Heavy rains and flooding in eastern parts of Australia, which have affected production of grapes for the domestic market, could lead to a shortage of the fruit for exporting this year.
GrapeExchange general manager Elliot Jones said production this season on the company’s operations in St George and Mundubbera had been heavily affected by the weather.
Mr Jones told Fruitnet.com the company’s operation in Mundubbera suffered 25 per cent crop loss due to the weather, with 460mm of rain falling during harvesting. This equates to four times the average rainfall for the area for the month of December.
Operations in St George were even worse hit with quality issues leading to the loss of 40 per cent of the crop. Mr Jones said the mean daily temperature for the area during November was four to five degrees lower than average, and December was six degrees below average. “The cold pre-harvesting period resulted in grapes not maturing properly and the grapes had to remain on the vine for three weeks longer than normal, which led to quality issues,” he said.
The company’s St George and Mundubbera operations supply grapes exclusively to the domestic market. Mr Jones said, however, decreased domestic volumes would lead to a shortfall of grapes for export markets.
“The domestic market has been undersupplied, so there are inflated prices that are going to preclude export opportunities this year,” he said.
He added, however, that export opportunities should improve toward the end January.
While surface flooding had been an issue and necessitated the company aerial spraying vineyards, Mr Jones said the majority of the damage had been caused directly by the rain.
On a brighter note Mr Jones said the inclement weather did not damage any of the company’s crops of Crimson Seedless.
