South African grape growers invest in late season varieties

Big expansions are taking place in the Namibian grape production, it is one of the earliest Southern Hemisphere countries and the fruit mostly arrives on an empty market. Aussenkehr, the main production area, has a very tight community of growers and the government also has a hand in new developments, making it difficult to get land, so South African growers are looking to extend the late varieties in South Africa. But due to a lack of water storage and dams and electricity they can not expand very quickly.

The total area in South Africa is increasing and many growers are investing in new varieties which have the properties required by today's markets. Seedless grapes are preferred over seeded, red is becoming more popular as the Asian markets open up, but these new varieties must be robust enough to make the journey to the far destinations.

Namibia and the Northern Cape will eventually get to the point where they will produce 30 million cartons. "At the moment they produce 25m cartons, so we hope for new market development, possibly in the east, to increase demand. Thailand has opened again for South African grapes this year and new protocols to China have made it possible to export there. Canada is also a growing market for South African grapes," explained one grower.

He added that the tendency in the Northern Cape is to go for the later varieties due to Namibian production.

At the moment there is lots of new development in Robertson in the Western Cape. Growers are looking to have grapes available in bigger volumes into week 14, at the moment the bigger volumes come to an end around weeks 12 & 13. This is a desert-like area with little rainfall which is great for grape growing. The plans are to plant around 200 ha of new vines in the next two seasons.

Extending the season may mean clashing with the grape production from India, but the Indian growers focus more on white seedless varieties such as Thompson and the grower explains that it may be a while before they can produce the later red varieties, so it should not be a problem.