Fruit growers in the south of the country have had an extremely tough season so far with navel orange production in the Eastern Cape facing real challenges.
According to Justin Chadwick, CEO of the Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA), growers in the Eastern Cape were faced with a “fruit drop” scenario.
“Due to hot, dry conditions during crop development the fruit just dropped off the trees at maturity,” he explained to FTW.
While it remained difficult to estimate the exact impact of the fruit dropping on navel orange export figures, some estimates are in the region of at least 50% less fruit leaving the country.
There was some indication of fruit also dropping off trees in the Western Cape although not as acute as was the case in the Eastern Cape.
According to Chadwick growers in the north seemed to escape this particular challenge. “The season has been extremely tough for growers in the south of the country,” said Chadwick.
“Navels dropping off trees has meant a huge drop in the amount of exportable navels from the region, as well as heightened pest concerns due to the vulnerability of the fallen fruit.”
In the north of the country, he said the season so far had been a lot better with grapefruit quality in particular reported to be outstanding. This, coupled with responsible harvesting and marketing, had resulted in good returns, he added.
“The lemon market was impacted by a very late Spanish season, putting pressure on lemon exporters to stay out of the European Union and putting pressure on other markets. The soft citrus season can be described as normal. The Valencia volumes are only starting to be harvested now and it is still too early to comment,” said Chadwick.
With last year’s volumes severely impacted by a low Valencia and grapefruit harvest – a total volume of 108 million cartons was recorded for all citrus – predictions are however still positive with an expected increase in citrus exports for 2017.
“Present predictions are 115 million cartons for all citrus, which shows a recovery from 2016 but is way off the initial 12-million carton estimate,” said Chadwick.
