Crop Report: June 28th, 2021
Tomatoes
Conventionals – Early and mid-season plants are progressing nicely. Late season plantings are still progressing and establishing in the fields.
San Marzano Style – Crop is looking nice and maturing as expected. Weather forecast is predicting extreme heat for next week.
Organics – Crop continues to look good. Despite days of extreme heat last week, growers were able to utilize drip irrigation to water the plants and prevent them from stressing more than they had to.
Peaches
Organics – Harvest continues and is progressing nicely. All normal cultural practices continue including irrigation.
Conventionals – An extreme heat wave has slowed down the fruit sizing. Growers were hoping for milder temperatures to allow fruit to grow. Fruit size is small and is 1-2mm under averages. Mixed maturity is visible in some orchards which will make it a little more difficult to pinpoint the start of harvest for those orchards. All normal cultural practices & crop protection continue including irrigation.
Pears
High temperatures last week stressed the trees and some fruit was sun damaged. Despite the drought and water concerns growers feel they will have enough water availability to make it through harvest. Irrigation continues as temperatures rise.
Grapes
Growers continue to be in maintenance mode as crop develops. Some growers are experiencing verasion. Veraison is the change of color representing the transition from berry growth to berry ripening. All normal cultural practices and crop protections continue.
Cherries
Harvest continues and we’ve completed roughly 25%. Harvest will continue into August. The Pacific Northwest is receiving record high heat at levels never seen before while harvesting. Field Managers will evaluate the fruit after the heat for possible sunburn damage.
Apricots
Harvest continues and is expected to be completed the end of this week. Size continues to be an issue for all growers. Recent heatwaves impacted fruit quality as well creating softer fruit. Lower temperatures this week should help improve quality as we finish out harvest.
Mango
Harvest was late but overall quality is good and ample. Plants continue to face impacts from COVID as they struggled with labor. We continue to face increased costs due to labor and raw material cost increases.
Pineapple
COVID continues to hinder the workforce as labor typically comes into these countries from other Southeast Asian countries. Because of this plants are operating at 65% capacity and are not running as efficient. Crop looks ample & positive for this summer’s pack as well as the winter crop.
Oysters
This year’s crop was good. Overall size was slightly smaller than average. We continue to face increased costs due to supply chain and COVID regulations.