January damage to early-developing green grapes is much more severe than realized at the time, according to Carlos Bon, fruit category manager for Divine Flavor LLC.

Divine Flavor’s vineyards in Guaymas and Hermosillo will both be down in production of the green varieties, Perlette and Superior, which is otherwise known as Sugraone. Bon said that this production decrease was common with other Sonora growers as well.

“There was a weather issue at bloom in mid-January” with temperatures of 32 degrees, he said. “Perlette is the first variety to bloom in the early spring” and so it suffered the most cold damage. While 32 degrees is alarming for Sonora vineyards, “a freeze in 2011 went to 18. That is a big freeze. This was not a disaster, but it hurt varieties at a certain stage of maturity. It was at or near 32 for some time.” But the recent discovery of reduced bunch counts brings “a big change,” Bon said March 25. “There will be much lower yields than expected.”

As a practical matter for Divine Flavor, which is based in Nogales, AZ, this is not a devastating event.

“Our Perlette acreage has gone down over the last couple of years with the emergence of new and better varieties.

“With very low bunch counts this year, at the last minute we pulled out two 30-acre plantings of Perlettes and planted new and better varieties, instead of spending the money to harvest only four or bunches a plant. We do still have Perlettes — a fair amount — but much less than before.”

In 2016, Sonora Superiors also have low bunch counts. But they bloom later in the vineyards and didn’t have as much of a reduction as Perlettes, Bon said.

As to the percentage of loss on Perlette and Superiors this season, Bon said, “It’s hard to affirm, but I think the loss on those two varieties might be in the 25 percent to 30 percent range.”

Explaining bunch counts, he noted that “normally, when the plant gives enough bunches, it gives you the option to choose the best ones and drop the no-so-good ones. When you do not have a good amount of them, you’ve just got to work with what’s there and that usually means a lower yield.”

Bon said that three years ago Sonora produced 2.1 million boxes of Perlettes, but “it will be hard to get to one million boxes in 2016.”

Bon said the Sonoran grape harvest will be early this season, with the first volume coming in “very, very early May.”