Apricots
Harvest is nearly complete with only one more grower left to pick. Harvest has been a major challenge as predicted; extended bloom lead to a very short crop. Green fruit has been present in all fields throughout harvest. Fruit size and quality continue to look good and harvest should wrap up this week.
Cherries
Harvest continues to go well. We are at the peak of harvest for the next 9 or more days, and then harvest will wane down to the end sometime in August. We are seeing a higher cherry volume from packing sheds. The pack outs for Bing cherries is down, which is creating more cherries for processing. The rains and high winds earlier in June caused the Bing texture to soften. The early and mid-season orchards finished up harvest last week. We are starting harvest for the late season varieties at lower elevations and starting Bings this week at higher elevation orchards. Pack outs at packing sheds are expected to improve with the late season varieties.
Peaches
Organic Peach harvest is going well. Conventional Peach harvest in Modesto started on June 30th. We expect the Kingsburg area harvest to begin sometime between now and July 8th. In Yuba City, harvest is right around the corner. We are thinking that harvest may begin around July 9th or 10th. Overall, the crop looks good, but some Loadel blocks have uneven ripeness. Growers are putting up tree props and irrigating. We have just about finished pre-binning the Extra Earlies.
Pears
Fruit is sizing well. Estimated harvest is date is July 18th.
Grapes
The crop is in growth and maintenance mode. Verasion (berry softening) began on June 23rd. Harvest is about 5 weeks away.
Tomatoes
Organic Tomatoes: Crop is still looking good. The fruit is maturing nicely. We are about one week away from harvest.
Pear Tomatoes: Plants are maturing as expected and fruit is sizing nicely.
Conventional Tomatoes: The overall crop is looking very nice and seems to be holding up during these heat spells we have been experiencing periodically each week.
Growers have been taking precautions to help mitigate any heat stress to their crop.