The recent heavy rain over the Western Cape varied enormously: around Wellington and Stellenbosch, farms received normal rainfall without any real damage, whereas pockets of incredibly high intensity rain caused localized flooding and damage in other areas like Franschhoek and Montagu.
“I personally think the floods didn’t have a major impact on the actual crop in our orchards,” says Hubert Leclercq, managing director of RuBisCO, a vertically integrated stonefruit exporter with orchards around Stellenbosch, Paarl and Montagu.
Black Pearl plums
“There was no hail involved. I’ve since been on a few farms in Stellenbosch and in Montagu which had over 200 mm of rain and the fruit is looking good. We view the rainfall as more of a positive than a negative.”
He continues: “By that I don’t mean to diminish the high infrastructural damage, which was severe in places, but overall in our orchards we don’t see that the floods had a detrimental effect on the crop itself.”
He notes that the earlier flowering plums, such as Black Splendor and Black Pearl, are being thinned out now, as well as nectarines.
He says what he has so far seen on nectarines is a good crop (right).
“The rain was early enough before the fruit was thinned out, and therefore the impact wasn’t major."
He continues: "Three weeks earlier we had limited ice rain and hail in certain areas, so growers can now thin out and take out the hail-damaged fruit.”
For more information:
Hubert Leclercq
RuBisCO
Tel: +27 83 658 7722
Email: hubert@rubisco.co.za