The Mexican grape harvest gets underway in early May.
Mexican grape growers expect to ship 22 million cartons of grapes this spring — up 25.6 percent from 2018.
Around 4 million cartons of grapes are expected to be shipped to the domestic Mexican market, which is in addition to the 22 million counted for export.
The total for Mexician grape shipments in 2018 was 16.4 million boxes. In 2017 that total was 21 million.
In 2018, there was unusual weather, and cold in March particularly playe havoc with the crop, which resulted in an irregular harvest schedule in 2018, depending on the weather impact on different Sonoran growing zones.
Heaviest early green grape and red Flame loadings should occur the last half of May to the first half of June.
Mid-season green seedless peak volume will occur during most of June.
Flames account for nearly 50 percent of all Mexican fresh grape shipments, with 10.6 million cartons forecast this year. This is up almost 33 percent from 7.1 million cases in 2018. In 2017, 10.1 million boxes of Flames were shipped.
Sugraone this season moves ahead of green grapes to have a projected 4.3 million cartons. This number was 4.4 million in 2017 and down to 3.1 million last year.
For the 2019 crop, green grape production is estimated to be 4 million cases. This is up 16.5 percent from a total 2018 pack out of 3.3 million. In 2017, green grape shipments from Mexico was 3.6 million.
Black grape loadings from Mexico has fallen for the third straight year. The 2019 estimate anticipates 1 million boxes. Black grape shipments in 2018 was 1.2 million, down from 1.3 million in 2017.
Red Globe volume also is predicted to be down for the third straight year, with 600,000 boxes forecast. Red Globes loadings this year are forecast to be off 3.1 percent from 2018 and well below the 688,000 boxes shipped in 2017.