Crop Report: April 17th, 2020
Tomatoes
Conventionals – Transplanting continues and are well into the mid-season phase of planting. Early season plantings are looking good and received a growth spurt due to warm weather this week. Rain in the forecast for early next week.
San Marzano Style – Plants looking good and maturing well. Warm temperatures this week gave the plants a growth boost. Scattered showers in the forecast for this weekend.
Organics – Continuing to grow and mature nicely. This week temperature’s averaged in the low 80’s giving plants a nice growth spurt. Scattered showers in the forecast for this weekend.
Peaches
Organics – Warm temperatures averaging around 80° are moving peach development along. Thinning has begun. All other normal cultural practices continue along with standard crop protection.
Conventionals – Warmer weather is expected to continue which will help boost fruit development. This has also encouraged trees to begin to abort smaller fruit, a natural process so the tree can commit more resources to fruit with more potential, which will help speed up thinning in a few weeks. The cherry harvest in the south is expected to start in a few weeks which should give us a better indication of labor concerns. All normal cultural practices including tying, mowing and irrigating as needed along with crop protection continue.
Pears
Weather has been ideal for trees to continue fruit development. Growers have reported mild hail damage in the River and Linden districts from the last big storm. Between this damage and an overall decreased volume for this district volume will be down slightly but it is too early to tell how much it will effect the overall crop volume.
Grapes
Grape growth is showing some movement with warmer temperatures. Bunch counts are currently taking place to gauge the crop size. Normal cultural practices and crop protection continue.
Cherries
Warm, sunny days are bringing on bloom and bee activity, for pollination, for most orchards. Higher elevations and late varieties expected to bloom over the next couple of weeks. Growers are anticipating and preparing for a full crop and harvest earlier than normal.
Apricots
Warmer weather continues to be forecasted, which should make for ideal growing conditions. Fruits are averaging 33mm in diameter. Normal cultural practices and crop protection continue.
Oysters
This year’s expected yield is not as ideal as anticipated which will affect the availability of inventory. Market pricing of fresh oysters is making it hard for canneries to compete, resulting increased cost for raw product. We anticipate we will be able to continue to source the majority of our pack from Korea however will balance out as necessary from Chinese supplier.
Mandarins
Plants in China are 100% up and running. Although they are on time with shipments, we are facing challenges in other areas as a result of shutdowns due to COVID-19. Freight and trucking at the ports are delayed as they continue to play catch up with increased shipments.
Mango
Current crop appears to be balanced for the upcoming harvest. We expect to see a normal pack for this year.
Pineapple
Upcoming winter harvest is projected to be below average. This will cause costs to increase as facilities cannot run at 100% production levels for optimum efficiency.