Nov 28, 2011

Drought hurts yield, but helps quality of Texas grapes

West Texas grape grower Neal Newsome went from grappling with a killing freeze to watching his fruit suffer from the state’s worst single-year drought.

“You can’t win for losing in a year like this. Nothing clicks,” said the 57-year-old whose harvest on 115 acres near the New Mexico state line was about a third of the 300 tons he harvested last year.

While grape and wine experts say the drought produced better tasting grapes and won’t have a big effect on supply, yields across the state were estimated at half of last year’s harvest of 8,900 tons.

There were fewer grape clusters on vines and fewer and smaller grapes on each cluster, said Ed Hellman, the state’s viticulturist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Lubbock. Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

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