REFERENCE is made to an article of July 18 captioned ‘Harvesting, grinding still to start at Skeldon for pivotal second crop’ that quoted the President of GAWU, expressing uncertainty on the commencement of the second crop at Skeldon Estate. The production schedule that the GAWU President referred to cited Skeldon to have originally starting its crop on July 26, and this was communicated to the relevant personnel on the estate. The factory is now expected to commence processing canes on 5th August and the crop is expected to be completed by mid-November which is well before the onset of the usual December rains.

The later than anticipated start of the crop is due to the extremely wet conditions currently prevailing at Skeldon. The majority of the canes to be harvested require the use of the mechanised harvesters and with the current wet conditions, these machines cannot operate. Manual harvesting cannot be relied upon to keep the factory fully supplied with canes and therefore must be supplemented with mechanised harvesting.

Albion, Rose Hall and Uitvlugt have commenced their second crop, of which Albion is in its third week. Blairmont started its crop yesterday. Enmore will start its crop by next week and Wales by August 8. The delayed start by Wales is attributed to the need to re-tube the #4 boiler and harmonising of the cane age due to a late start in the 2nd crop last year.