“The upcoming pear crop looks very promising,” says De Kock Hamman, technical manager at Ceres Fruit Growers in the eponymous Western Cape town.
The first BCs (Williams Bon Chretien, right) were ripe ten days earlier and the pear harvest started in the final week of last year already, an indication of the strong demand for pears.
A pear exporter (preferring anonymity) maintains: “Everybody wants the pears from South Africa. Europe has a normal crop of Conference pears but for the rest – Italy, Spain, they’re all down on pears so there’s a good open market for South African pears to enter.”
The domestic market has basically run out of pears after last year’s hail damage, and pears are 45% more expensive than a year ago.
“This year’s pear crop is not a large one in tonnages. It’s fairly average," Hamman notes. "We’ve had quite a bit of wind and it left plenty of wind marks on our early variety summer pears. On the Abate we had frost damage in areas higher than 800m above sea level, leaving frost marks on them.”
He continues that the later varieties are clean. Forelle pears are still hanging for another eight weeks, looking very promising. “Fruit sizing is a bit on the small size as a result of the cool summer, although just last week we had three abnormally hot days.”
“The crop is good-looking, better than last year,” opines the exporter. “I expect a nice upcoming season.”
The port of Cape Town remains their biggest headache, he remarks.
For more information:
De Kock Hamman
Ceres Fruit Growers
Tel: +27 023 316 9400
http://www.cfg.co.za/