{"id":897,"date":"2018-10-31T07:49:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T05:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/?p=897"},"modified":"2018-11-28T12:53:04","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T10:53:04","slug":"full-steam-ahead-for-a-safe-grape-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/?p=897","title":{"rendered":"Full steam ahead for a SAFE grape harvest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The vines are in bloom and everything looks set for a good grape season, says Dries van Rooyen, SAFE\u2019s General Manager of Farming Operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit early to predict the harvest more precisely, but we are very satisfied with what we currently have on the vines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe water situation in the Western Cape has improved over the past few months, however, the dams are still below 80% so we won\u2019t know for another month or so what the water allocations will be for this growing season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe late winter has delayed growth a little, but so far we haven\u2019t noted any adverse effects from last season\u2019s drought. We\u2019ll see in a few weeks whether or not the size of the grapes will be affected, but so far everything looks normal for this stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving said that, weather conditions in the Western Cape are generally very unpredictable, so we will have to wait and see.<\/p>\n

According to Dries, farmers are satisfied with the growth and development on their Orange River farms where the water situation has been stable.<\/p>\n

“We expect to pack about 1.5 million cartons in total this season, up from around 1.2 million last season. However, this is just an estimate. I should be able to give a better indication of the harvest in a few weeks\u2019 time.”<\/p>\n

SAFE increased plantings by almost 30% over the past two years but the new plantings will only bear fruit in about 2020.<\/p>\n

“Due to the drought, we cut back the new vines to allow the stock to develop more fully before bearing,\u201d says Dries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are managing the vines with a view towards future production and when they do bear fruit, this will increase the overall output by around 30 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cFarming is after all a long-term operation and it makes good sense to minimise the stress to the new plantings so that they will bear strongly for many years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The vines are in bloom and everything looks set for a good grape season, says Dries van Rooyen, SAFE\u2019s General Manager of Farming Operations. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit early to predict …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,61],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897"}],"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=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":914,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safe.co.za\/SAFENews\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}