The South African Table Grape Industry (SATI) has lowered its estimate for the crop of grapes expected in the 2019/2020 season by about one and a half million cartons.
A crop of between 59. 55 million and 66.3 million cartons is now expected.
SATI CEO, Willem Bestbier says this is due to the significantly lower volumes expected from the Northern Provinces region which experienced unusual continuous rains during its peak harvesting period.
Bestbier says however the berry size is good in all the regions, including the Northern Provinces, the Orange River, Olifants River and Hex River Valleys as well as the Berg River.
He says to date, night temperatures have been lower than normal, which is conducive to good colour development of red and black varieties.
