Organic plum growers from South Africa managed to weather the effects of severe rainstorms at the end of November.

“There was a two-week delay to arrivals of our early variety, Pioneer, but the first shipments arrived at Felixstowe just in time for the Christmas market,” Andrew Poulton of Be Organic told freshinfo. “It was a bit tight, and would have been better a fortnight before, to allow us to slowly move into our programmes. However, on the plus side, the fruit has been larger than we expected, because of the rain. Returns reached 200-250p a kilo.”

Growers are now picking the next variety, Fortune, which is set to arrive on time, with larger-sized fruit than usual. Supplies of Laetitia plums are due to arrive a little earlier than originally expected, according to Poulton.

“It was warm in South Africa over Christmas and the New Year - around 30-35oC - so supplies are back on track after the heavy rainfall,” he said.

“But the damage will be more long term than anything, looking ahead to the South African citrus season. Sand was deposited almost one metre thick in an old Marisol grove that was due to be topworked for Cumbria Navels (pictured below), and an area due to be planted with Afourer clementines in the Western Cape was also badly affected. The question is how growers will get rid of all the deposited sand.

“But the Western Cape was not as badly hit as the Langkloof, where damage to the area’s infrastructure was colossal,” added Poulton. “Overall, we might lose 10-15 per cent of all the organic fruit we’d like to export from South Africa - about the same losses as conventional growers will suffer.”

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