While Heat is Bad for Veg its Proving to Be Good for Mexican Grapes
Sonora, Caborca and Hermosillo, Mexico
By Jordan Okumura
03.19.13
An unusually cold January kept grape growers in Sonora on their toes. The still-dormant grape vines received a lot of good chilling hours from the cooler temperatures but with a cold snap in February and bud break, the young shoots became vulnerable to freeze. Temperatures were low all over Sonora but especially Caborca.
Jim Pandol, Owner, Pandol Associates Marketing, tells AndNowUKnow, "At the time we felt that there could be some effects of the cold that might cause some damage to the crop. From our review of various vineyards last week, it really doesn't seem to have affected the crop at all. The crop at that time was 7-10 days later than normal."Recently, the cold weather let up, welcoming 'warmer than usual' temperatures allowing Hermosillo and Caborca grapes to catch up to normal. Timing at this point should be from normal to a few days later than normal. If the warm weather continues, start dates could be normal, he tells us.
In terms of volume, Hermosillo will probably be a little lighter than last year. It appears that the crop per vine is probably close to last year/normal. The loss in volume is from vine replacement.
Pandol, notes, "We have seen recently growers taking out older vineyards and replanting to new vineyards. What I hear most commonly is Sugraones being pulled out and replaced by Sugraones. This causes a dip in production but in the next few years there will be more volume of better quality. The best estimate I can muster at this point is that Hermosillo will be about 10% less than it was last year."
Caborca is later than Hermosillo, making it more difficult to make an estimate at this time for Caborca. It appears though that Caborca will have a similar volume as last year. In the upcoming years the volumes from Cabarca will be increasing because there has been planting of new vineyards. As we were making estimates of the Caborca melon volume for our melon program, we found that some of the grape growers who have also grown melons are not growing melons this year or have less because they are limited by water. They have planted grapes and therefore cannot plant melons because they do not have enough water for both. Therefore, there will be some increase in the Caborca grape volume over the next years.
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