The South African table grape export crop could be as much as five million cartons lower following damage by rain in some of the production regions.
Industry body SATI has issued two possible forecasts for the 2011 season after rain caused significant damage to the crop during the past few weeks.
At worst, the body predicts an export crop of around 46 million cartons, while at best some 49m cartons will be exported.
Original estimates at the start of the season predicted a crop of between 51m-55m cartons.
Losses in the Northern region and the Orange River are significant, but estimates in the later regions have also been reduced.
“The crop estimate in the Northern region will be at least 15 per cent lower than initially estimated due to the high rainfall this season which caused delays in the harvesting of most varieties,” SATI reported. The revised crop estimate for this region is now between 3.2m-3.7m cartons.
In the Orange River the crop has been revised downwards to between 12.8m and 13.3m cartons, from a pre-season estimate of between 15.5m and 16m cartons.
SATI said Thompson Seedless and small volumes of Sugrathirteen are currently being packed while small volumes of Red Globe will be packed intermittently until next week.
