On the first days of September, Chile had a series of frosts that mainly affected the Sixth and Seventh Regions. While these frosts were expected, their magnitude surprised cherry producers in these regions. "The most affected region goes from Curico up to the coast, and even though we still don't know what the extent of the damage on the coming harvest will be, we estimate that 30% of the cherry flowers in this region have been damaged," the producers in the area said.
The Sixth Region wasn't as affected by the frost. Hence the damage in this area would be moderate and producers believe that only 15% of crops will be affected. Generally speaking, producers took the appropriate and required preventive measures. Unfortunately, many producers don't have frost control systems, which makes things more difficult.
According to weather forecasts, there should be be no more frosts in the next few weeks, but producers will take precautions for the whole month of September. Before the frost, the weather had been ideal to produce an extremely large harvest. Thus, its hard to calculate how the 2017 Chilean cherry campaign will be.
As a result, it's also very difficult to know what percentage of the fruit was lost. "It is possible that a 30% damage to flowers will not necessarily affect the harvest volume producers expect. Additionally, most cherry producers have their crops in different areas, so the weather changes affect them differently," the producers stated.