Central Chile has recently had relative humidity levels not seen in many years, leading to further losses for table grape growers.

Speaking with www.freshfruitportal.com, Fedefruta president Juan Carolus Brown said rains last week have led to average losses of 30% in the varieties Flame and Superior in the area.

"This has not happened since 2013, a year when there was a lot of rot," Brown said.

"On one hand there was the rain but there is something else that has been permanent: in January of 2013 we had 140 hours of relative humidity above 80%, and this year we've had above 180 hours.

"Normally there would be humidity of 20-40%, but not 80% with this intensity."

Brown said this led to the fruit absorbing a lot of moisture and cracking.

"When you have 10% of the bunch in that condition it's better to throw it out," he said.

"Now all you can do is clean and harvest quickly, because we still have this environment," he said, adding last week's rain was the "icing on the cake".

Subsole commercial manager Juan Colombo said the rain triggered problems of rapid deterioration on the vines, leading to the presence of botrytis and fruit cracking.

This means a large amount of fruit will not meet export standards, as in many cases the risk of having fruit in poor condition on arrival will be too high.

Cropmonitor specialist Ian Carlo Bottinelli added the fruit had been softening quickly in Flame and Superior grapes, adding that he recently visited a farm in the Paine area where four hectares of Flames had been lost completely.

"There is not a crisis, but there has been problems after the rain...10 days after the rain you start to see strong cases of botrytis," Bottinelli said.

In response, it is expected Chilean growers will be applying more fungicides to control the potential for disease, which will also lead to increased costs.

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