Dear Readers,
After some very rainy days in the first week of April, the weather improved in the second week, with quite some sunshine and temperatures between 30 and 36 degrees Celsius, so that farmers were in a position to deliver again.
Unfortunately, after a spell of dry weather, rain was interrupting again. Henceforth the drying-process has not been finalized, (specially for goldens) because a lot of parcels still had a moisture-content which made them unacceptable to be produced promptly.
Because of the fore-mentioned factor, we can say that, in comparison with other years, this crop is pretty late and although we guess that the final-outcome of the crop is somewhere between 35 and 37.000 tons, there are no official figures, as yet.
Two weeks ago we were of the opinion that there were only some odd quantities left and that 95 percent of the total crop was delivered meanwhile. Today we get the feeling that there might be some good tonnage left in farmers’ hands. We will see.
How far the quality of these remaining parcels will have suffered from the longer period of drying, time will learn.
Despite the fact that we cannot speak about a fairly sized crop, one can state that with the carry-over of last year there will be enough raisins available. Anyhow, as long as we speak about Thompsons and W.P’s. Unfortunately the demand for the latter is hardly there, at present.
As far as, in this respect, price-development is concerned: a lot will depend on the two big suppliers. One of them might still foresee problems with frost and the other is still worrying with drought.
The comings months will tell us which way it goes.
How different is the situation for goldens and especially for jumbos.
The demand for jumbos is still there but nothing available. The same applies for bolds.
Hopefully one can still find a seller for some mediums.
more later…