{"id":1123,"date":"2019-09-03T09:33:27","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T07:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/?p=1123"},"modified":"2019-09-03T09:33:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T07:33:27","slug":"rain-gives-safe-sweet-hope-for-record-grape-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/?p=1123","title":{"rendered":"Rain gives SAFE sweet hope for record grape harvest."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Farmers throughout the Western Cape are celebrating what has been described as a &#8220;return to normal&#8221; thanks to generous rains that have delivered enough water to fill dams that were virtually empty after last seasons&#8217; crippling drought.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1126\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1126\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-1126 size-full\" style=\"font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 300; font-size: 17px; font-family: 'Open Sans';\" src=\"http:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/grape-bud.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/grape-bud.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/grape-bud-300x169.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1126\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A promising grape harvest is predicted for the Western Cape.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While some areas have still not received a full season&#8217;s rain, there has been enough rain falling on SAFE farms for the exporter to predict a &#8220;promising&#8221; grape harvest &#8211; in the Western Cape at least &#8211; of nearly double last year&#8217;s crop.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Critical farm dams are full, water restrictions have largely been lifted and the season really looks promising,&#8221; says Nathalee Cloete, SAFE Operations Coordinator.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1128\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1128\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-1128 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/SAFE-grapes-pic-1-.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/SAFE-grapes-pic-1-.jpeg 360w, https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/SAFE-grapes-pic-1--169x300.jpeg 169w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1128\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A return to normal thanks to generous rains.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>An indication of this is that Nuwepos, in the Van Rhynsdorp area &#8211; which was hard-hit by drought last year &#8211; is expected to produce in excess of 420 000 cartons of top quality table grapes for export this season.<\/p>\n<p>Grapes fetching the best returns include red seedless varieties as well as Crimson and Ralli seedless, which are a particular favourite of SAFE&#8217;s growing Chinese markets. New varieties being planted include Arrafourteen and Sweet Enchantment.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from better weather this season, SAFE has over the past five years planted an increasing number of hectares, with the result that a greater number of cartons are being harvested from each hectare.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a result of the extremely difficult conditions due to the drought last season we only packed 1.33 million cartons. This year we expect to pack in excess of two million cartons,&#8221; says Nathalee.<\/p>\n<p>Coming on the back of a good citrus harvest, and an increase of exports to new markers &#8211; such as those in China &#8211; SAFE has emerged from a really tough season to be able to deliver on their promise to clients of being reliable in consistently delivering top quality fruit to global markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Farmers throughout the Western Cape are celebrating what has been described as a &#8220;return to normal&#8221; thanks to generous rains that have delivered enough water to fill dams that were &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}