Dear Readers:
Be aware of the following: at harvesting-time things can change by the day.
As long as the berries are hanging on the vines, the impact of the weather (provided it is not too extreme both ways) is no reason for alarm.
It makes all the difference once the raisins are cut and are going through the drying process.
At that stage, intervention of rain, low temperatures etc can temper the result of a crop which was expected to be good but smaller than last year which was a bumper-crop for S-Africa.
So far we have no reasons to be scared about the South African crop. Apart from some rain at the wrong place and time, we still expect a fairly sized and quality-wise good crop but again, one should not forget: as long as the merchandise is not under the roof everything is possible..
In 6 weeks from now it is easy to make a statement whether this was, quality-wise, a normal, good or an excellent crop.
Speaking about other crops: we may say that for the new raisin crop from California there could be a serious concern.
In actual fact, California is suffering under a lack of precipitation already for the last three years and as a result, the lakes/wells, from where basically, the irrigation has to be done, are reaching an extremely low level.
It speaks for itself that there is still a long way to go until September/October when the new crop should be ready and hopefully the weathergods may meanwhile be cooperative with a regular portion of water in the fields.
Not only raisins but the people (abt. 18 million) living in California need the water as well and next to that all the other fruit which is coming from these fields.. do need the water.
Anyhow, as long as the biggest supplier of raisins in 2013 strongly worries about the lack of water in the months to come, it sounds wise to cover your needs in time.