A late winter freeze is being blamed for what is expected to be a double digit drop in Mexican grape shipments this season.
Total volume in 2020 likely will be down about 20 percent from a year earlier — 19.7 million cartons, compared to 23.7 million in 2019.
Just about all varieties will be down in 2020t. The forecast calls for 800,000 boxes of perlettes versus 1.7 million in 2019; 8.7 million red seedless in 2020 versus 10.8 million in 2019; mid-green, 4.2 million in 2020 versus 5.1 million in 2019; red globe, 300,000 in 2020 versus 307,000 in 2019; and black, 1.5 million in 2020 versus 1.9 million in 2019.
The exceptions, with larger volumes seen this year over last, were early primes, at 2.8 million boxes versus 2.6 million in 2019; and “others”, 1.5 million versus 1.2 million in 2019.
Pandol Bros. Inc. of Dinuba, CA reports a good winter and a freeze, which had an impact on total production.
The freeze was particularly hard on the early season perlettes.
Fresh Farms of Nogales, AZ reports the first grapes shipped out of Jalisco in early April, with Sonora grapes starting to ship in early May, which would be normal.
The Oppenheimer Group of Vancouver, British Columbia was planning an early May start, which would be earlier than a year ago,
The is expecting to have good volume this season despite the expected smaller crop.